leaf through

Idioms  

1. Turn pages, as in browsing or searching for something. For example, There she sat, leafing through the various catalogs. This expression employs leaf in the sense of “turn over the leaves of a book,” a usage dating from the mid-1600s.

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Example Sentences

Some city ordinances weren’t even indexed, forcing Birch and Karabian to leaf through the longhand lawbooks page by page, wearing special archival gloves.

From Slate • Aug. 31, 2023

Carefully, diligently, Vanna Marangoni dons her white gloves: a guardian of memory, ready to leaf through the archives of her husband's life.

From BBC • Jun. 25, 2022

We still neatly package misery for students, leaving it as something to stumble upon as they leaf through files, as if it's as ordinary as a rule of civil procedure or a trespassing statute.

From Salon • Jan. 23, 2022

As the owners, they can listen to the 31 tracks on its two CDs, ogle its engraved nickel-silver box and leaf through the leather-bound parchment book that are part of the item’s overall package.

From New York Times • Oct. 20, 2021

Charles picked up one of the books I had brought him and began to leaf through it sporadically.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Related Words

• gather
• interpret
• know
• learn
• refer to
• scan
• see
• study
• translate
• view