look away
"look-away" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“look away” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To ignore something; to pretend not to have seen or noticed something; to avoid dealing with something.
Corpus desk
Index EN-look-away · look away · English
look away · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | look away |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “look away” in English
Rare enough to double-check
look away is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To ignore something; to pretend not to have seen or noticed something; to avoid dealing with something.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for look away in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is look away, spelled L-O-O-K- -A-W-A-Y.
Definition
- 1To ignore something; to pretend not to have seen or noticed something; to avoid dealing with something.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how look away appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
It's important not to look away from difficult situations like this.
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.