lock out

verb

1. to prevent from entering by locking a door

2. to prevent (employees) from working during an industrial dispute, as by closing a factory

noun

1. the closing of a place of employment by an employer, in order to bring pressure on employees to agree to terms

Idioms and Phrases

Keep out, prevent from entering. For example, Karen was so angry at her brother that she locked him out of the house . [Late 1500s] Shakespeare had it in The Comedy of Errors (4:1): “For locking me out of my doors by day.”

Withhold work from employees during a labor dispute, as in The company threatened to lock out the strikers permanently . [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

I explained that I was now locked out of the BBC and was annoyed.

From BBC

The fee is so high that only the biggest and richest employers will be able to pay it, locking out small start-ups that have tried to use H-1B visas to build their professional teams.

From Los Angeles Times

The government says increasing the minimum wage is helping, but that "a generation of young people are locked out of homeownership... we're turning this crisis around by... building the 1.5 million homes this country needs."

From BBC

Kirk surely wasn’t the only young conservative to conclude that the right was effectively locked out of existing celebrity culture and contemporary models of coolness, and therefore had to create its own.

From Salon

Other potential bidders have expressed frustration that they have been locked out of advancing their own plans as the lenders have effective control of the company.

From BBC

Related Words

• ban 
• bar 
• block 
• boycott 
• eliminate 
• ignore 
• omit 
• ostracize 
• preclude 
• prevent 
• prohibit 
• refuse 
• reject 
• remove 
• rule out 
• suspend