ONLOOKER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does onlooker mean? 

• ONLOOKER (noun)
  The noun ONLOOKER has 1 sense:

1. someone who looks on

  Familiarity information: ONLOOKER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ONLOOKER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who looks on

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

looker-on; onlooker

Hypernyms ("onlooker" is a kind of...):

looker; spectator; viewer; watcher; witness (a close observer; someone who looks at something (such as an exhibition of some kind))

 Context examples 

One of the onlookers, who had been clenching his teeth to suppress hot speech, now spoke up:—

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Then, to the two affrighted onlookers: "Keep away! If you interfere, somebody's liable to get hurt."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And to save his face he turned fiercely upon the onlookers.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not why, for it was his first snow.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

It was to him, with his splendid power of vision, like gazing into a kinetoscope. He was both onlooker and participant.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter or that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost laughable to me who stood onlooker and who understood.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew back to a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreet enough to interrupt.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Next, he was no longer an onlooker but was himself in the canoe, Moti was crying out, they were both thrusting hard with their paddles, racing on the steep face of the flying turquoise.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

On the screen of his imagination he saw himself and this sweet and beautiful girl, facing each other and conversing in good English, in a room of books and paintings and tone and culture, and all illuminated by a bright light of steadfast brilliance; while ranged about and fading away to the remote edges of the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, free to look at will upon what he wished.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)