phrasal verb · neutral
look about/around for
UK/lʊk əˈbaʊt fə(r)/US/lʊk əˈbaʊt fɔr/look a·BOUT / a·ROUND for
to search for something casually or briefly; to look around in order to find
Examples
“I looked around for my notes but couldn't find them.”
“Researchers often look around for relevant studies before designing experiments.”
“If you look about for a good place to eat, there are plenty of cafés nearby.”
Band 8 sentence
“Before proposing a solution, we looked around for precedent studies to ensure our approach was viable.”
Collocations
- look around for information
- look about the neighbourhood
Word family
Common mistakes
use only 'look for' for all 'tìm' contexts→use 'look about/around for' when meaning 'ngó quanh tìm'
Say it for a higher band
5search for→6look for→7+look around for
Synonyms
search for
scan for
Easily confused
look for
“I looked for my keys all morning.”
Related words
Learn this word with the rest of its set, and get reminded at the right time.
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