feel out

phrasal verb

felt out; feeling out; feels out
: to talk to or question (someone) in an indirect way in order to find out if something one wants to do or get will be possible
He tried to feel us out to see if we'd loan him more money.

Examples of feel out in a Sentence

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But around that time, L and the four children — two toddlers and twin babies — were living in a house nearby that my grandmother bought for them, and things were starting to feel out of control. Frances Dodds Samantha Desz Krish Seenivasan Joel Thibodeau, New York Times, 18 May 2025 Try out different scents for each season, too; something that wears like a wool sweater in winter will feel out of place in summer; use that as an excuse to get something aquatic or green in the warmer months. Adam Hurly, Robb Report, 17 May 2025 In many respects, the film already feels out of date, mostly covering Trump’s crimes during his first term as well as the January 6 Capitol insurrection rather than dipping into the more flagrant fascism of his past few months back in office. Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 17 May 2025 What works seamlessly on Instagram may feel out of place on Snapchat, and what captures attention on TikTok might not translate to Facebook. Casper Ravn-Sørensen, Forbes.com, 12 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for feel out

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Cite this Entry

“Feel out.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feel%20out. Accessed 4 Jun. 2025.

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