strike out
Intransitive Verb:
- To begin a new and independent course of action or endeavor, often leaving a previous situation.
- In baseball, to be called out after accumulating three strikes, or to cause a batter to be out in this way.
- To be completely unsuccessful; to fail.
Transitive Verb:
- In baseball, to cause a batter to be out by pitching three strikes.
- To draw a line through written text to delete or cancel it.
- To eliminate or remove something from a list or record.
Intransitive Verb:
- After years working for the company, she decided to strike out as an independent consultant.
- The pitcher struck out with a powerful fastball.
- Our proposal struck out with the review committee; they rejected all our ideas.
Transitive Verb:
- The ace pitcher struck out twelve batters in the game.
- Please strike out the incorrect information and write the update clearly.
- They struck his name out from the guest list after he cancelled.
"to strike out on one's own": To start an independent venture or life, separate from previous support (e.g., family, a company).
- He left home at eighteen to strike out on his own in the city.
"to strike out at someone/something": To lash out verbally or physically; to attack or criticize fiercely.
- Frustrated by the accusations, he struck out at his critics during the press conference.
Strikeout (noun): In baseball, the act of putting a batter out with three strikes, or the scorecard notation for this event.
- The pitcher ended the inning with a strikeout.
Stricken (adjective, past participle of 'strike'): Deeply affected, as by trouble or strong emotion. (Note: This is a distinct meaning from 'strike out'.)
- She was stricken with grief.
- Begin/Commence: To start (a new venture).
- Fail/Flop: To be unsuccessful.
- Delete/Cross out: To remove text by drawing a line through it.
- Fan (slang, baseball): To strike out a batter.
Strike off: Similar to 'strike out' in the sense of removing from a list; also can mean to begin a journey.
- The judge ordered his name to be struck off the register.
- They struck off down the trail at dawn.
Strike through: To draw a line through text; synonymous with the deletion sense of 'strike out'.
- Use the editor's tool to strike through the old paragraph.
"Three strikes and you're out": An idiom originating from baseball, now commonly used in law and policy to mean that after three offenses, severe penalties apply.
- The state has a "three strikes and you're out" law for repeat felony offenders.
"Go down swinging": To fail while making a maximum effort. This is related to the baseball imagery of 'strike out', where a batter can strike out by swinging at and missing the third strike.
- We may not win the contract, but we'll go down swinging.
- set out on a course of action
- He struck out on his own
- cause to get out
- The pitcher retired three batters
- the runner was put out at third base
- make a motion as with one's fist or foot towards an object or away from one's body
- be unsuccessful in an endeavor
- The candidate struck out with his health care plan
- put out or be put out by a strikeout
- Oral struck out three batters to close the inning
- remove from a list
- Cross the name of the dead person off the list