Call out or callout?
call out is a verb meaning “To specify, especially in detail”; callout is a noun meaning “An outgoing telephone call”. Use call out as a verb and callout as a noun. call out is written as two words and callout as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between call out and callout?
| call out | callout | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | To specify, especially in detail To order into service; to summon into service | An outgoing telephone call An instance of being summoned to visit a certain place in order to provide assistance; an instance of summoning someone who is on call |
| Example | They call out 304 stainless steel in the drawing, but the part was made from aluminum | I had to pay for the callout of the plumber after the pipe burst |
| Forms | none | callouts |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 6 million words |
Sources: call out and callout in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of call out and callout
call out
- 1
To specify, especially in detail
They call out 304 stainless steel in the drawing, but the part was made from aluminum
- 2
Alternative spelling of callout
- 3
To order into service; to summon into service
The Governor called out the National Guard
- 4
To yell out; to vocalize audibly; announce
- 5
slangTo challenge (someone) to a fight
- 6
colloquialTo criticize or denounce (someone); to bring up previously unspoken criticisms about (someone); to point out (someone's) faults
He was very insulting. Finally Jack called him out and shut him up
- 7
To contact one's workplace and announce that one is unable to attend work. Regionalism short for call out sick; much more commonly: call in sick
callout
- 1
An outgoing telephone call
- 2
An instance of being summoned to visit a certain place in order to provide assistance; an instance of summoning someone who is on call
I had to pay for the callout of the plumber after the pipe burst
- 3
USA meeting or rally held in order to find interested participants, e.g. for an activity or sports team
So many people attended the basketball callout that the coach decided to form two teams
- 4
slangAn invitation to fight
- 5
A request for people to join or take part
- 6
A pull quote: an excerpt from an article (such as in a news magazine) that is duplicated in a large font alongside the article so as to grab a reader's attention and indicate the article's topic
- 7
An annotation that pertains to a specific location in a body of text or a graphic, and that is visually linked to that location by a mark or a matching pair of marks
- 8
The act of calling out from work, i.e. announcing that one cannot attend; the act of calling in sick
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, call out or callout?
call out is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; callout about once in every 6 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search call out vs callout?
“call out vs callout” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“callout vs call out”, “call out or callout”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.