lock out
"lock-out" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lock out” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To inadvertently prevent (a person, particularly oneself) from entering a place, by leaving it locked.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lock-out · lock out · English
lock out · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lock out |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lock out” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lock out is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for lock out, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is lock out, spelled L-O-C-K- -O-U-T.
Definition
- 1To inadvertently prevent (a person, particularly oneself) from entering a place, by leaving it locked.
- 2To prevent from accessing a data structure.
- 3(industrial) To prevent (a person, including oneself) from powering up or turning on a machine when doing so would be dangerous (accomplished with objects such as padlocks or zip ties placed through the switch handle, for example)
- 4(colloquial, sometimes humorous) To be unable to concentrate.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lock out appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I've locked myself out of my room again!
The synchronize keyword locks out all other threads trying to access the object.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.