hideout
Americannoun
-
hideouts
plural
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hideout
First recorded in 1870–75; noun use of verb phrase hide out
Explanation
A hideout is a secret place where someone can take refuge. Criminals or outlaws often lie low in a hideout to avoid being found by the police. A car thief might use his grandmother's apartment as a hideout to avoid detection. A group of ten year-olds might also have a hideout, a place that's protected from parents, bullies, older siblings, and anyone else who might interfere. Before the first use of hideout, in the 1880s, came the verb phrase hide out, or "hide from authorities," which was coined during the Civil War in reference to draft dodgers.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Pakistan's information chief said the strikes hit four targets, including a training camp, an ammunition cache and a hideout linked to two TTP commanders.
From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026
Military spokesperson Lt-Col Haruna M Sani described the assault on Boko Haram's Mandara mountain hideout, "under cover of darkness", as one of the military's "most significant hostage rescue operations" in the north-east.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026
When police came to arrest her, Klette managed to send off a text message to Garweg, allowing him to escape from his Berlin hideout.
From Barron's ● May 27, 2026
“In our view, OCBC’s solid balance sheet and sound asset quality metrics offer investors a good defensive hideout while still benefiting from the influx of liquidity and wealth flows into the country,” RHB says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026
He’d gone to our hideout, an old shed almost covered by the wild grape, honeysuckle, and brambles growing around and over it.
From "The Old Willis Place" by Mary Downing Hahn
It said they identified those behind the abduction and dismantled their support network, including informants and hideouts in the Old Oyo National Park forest.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
But the army said its operations, which lasted more than a month, targeted the kidnappers' wider networks and dismantled several hideouts in the forests of Old Oyo National Park.
From Barron's ● Jul. 11, 2026
Scott has helped me understand that they remain hideouts and redoubts where we can still hope to find practices of liberty today.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
People Over Papers channels that same logic — only now the hideouts are ICE-free zones, mutual aid hubs and sanctuary spaces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Ben’s hamster was cute and had an incredible setup with a big cage and all kinds of connecting plastic tubes and hideouts.
From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
