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View synonyms for onlooker

onlooker

[ on-look-er, awn- ]

noun

  1. spectator; observer; witness.


onlooker

/ ˈɒnˌlʊkə /

noun

  1. a person who observes without taking part


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Derived Forms

  • ˈonˌlooking, adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of onlooker1

1600–10; on + looker, after verb phrase look on

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Example Sentences

We’d all like to be the one that dazzles onlookers by nailing everything on the first try—but you never know who might be even more impressed by a determined second shot.

From Fortune

Other onlookers, including me, say if parents want schools that demanding, they should be allowed to have them.

The driver staggers on through the street, grabbing onlookers, all of whom die in moments.

That led reporters and interested onlookers to assume results were final.

The Atlantic’s proposition may be at odds with this trend, but industry onlookers applaud it for taking a longer-term view.

From Digiday

The paper reports: “It was utterly shocking to watch,” said one onlooker.

Everyone has fallen into the predictable roles of condemner, (rare and tentative) defender, and gleeful onlooker.

She was wearing an "incredibly low-cut dress," one onlooker said.

There can hardly have been an onlooker who would not have wanted to go up to the young man and shake his hand.

Asked one onlooker motioning toward the crush of people blockading every clothes rack.

He looked into the eyes of great Osiris,… and that part of him that ever watched—the great Onlooker—smiled.

Tchernitchev delayed his departure, remaining merely as an onlooker, to give the Prussians the support of his presence.

But the performance that stopped every heart and made every onlooker hold his breath was the parachute jumps.

By nightfall the place was the scene of great activity, and to an onlooker produced a singular effect.

It is usually the onlooker who sees that, just as a critic sees more in a picture than the painter ever put there.

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