Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective That is looking on; watching, observing.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From on- +‎ looking.

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Examples

  • Rather did he wish, as the sub-title of the book indicates, to offer a new method of training both mind and eye (and other senses as well), by means of which our modern 'onlooking' consciousness can be transformed into a new kind of 'participating' consciousness.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • I pointed at the newest arriving truck, backing into position according to the commands of onlooking Beholders.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • The onlooking huskies merely crowd interestingly around, ready, however, for the first slip.

    Husky — The Wolf Dog of the North 2010

  • I pointed at the newest arriving truck, backing into position according to the commands of onlooking Beholders.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • Iondo studied her onlooking face, slightly enamored by her blood-red and full lips, her sharp, angled nose and those emerald eyes.

    Iondo Meets Bloody Beth Thomas Martin 2011

  • For the Modern Life Is Rubbish crowd, there's a lot to deplore in the new Weetabix ad, in which a nine-year-old girl, on gulping down a spoonful of the offending cereal, breaks into a crunk/bodypopping routine to a scrunching dubstep tune, accompanied by her teddy bears, leaving her three onlooking cross-legged friends gobsmacked with awe.

    The Hard Sell: Weetabix Chocolate Spoonsize 2011

  • I pointed at the newest arriving truck, backing into position according to the commands of onlooking Beholders.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • Sarah Bradford, in Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (2004), debunks many of the myths surrounding Lucrezia – there probably was no poison ring, though it does seem likely that her brother Cesare did indeed stage the infamous chestnut banquet in 1501, in which naked courtesans scrambled around for chestnuts, to the delight of onlooking prelates, a scene vividly brought to life in the 2006 Spanish film, Los Borgia.

    Great dynasties of the world: The Borgias 2010

  • The onlooking tourists were lucky to see the performance because usually the dancers are hidden and protected from the prying eyes to “preserve their purity” as Ravynn Karet-Coxen put it.

    Tiny Dancers of Banteay Srey | Angkor Wat Apsara & Devata: Khmer Women in Divine Context 2010

  • Is this the racist message we want to communicate to the rest of the onlooking world?

    Clinton touts support from 'white Americans' 2008

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