tune out
Britishverb
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012-
Adjust a receiver so as not to receive a signal, as in Let's tune out all this interference . [Early 1900s]
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Dissociate oneself from one's surroundings; also, disregard, ignore. For example, The average reader, used to seeing lots of color images, tunes out when confronted with big blocks of text , or Some mothers are expert at tuning out the children's whining and quarreling . [1920s] For an antonym, see tune in .
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.
When government doesn’t level with people and they know it, they become even more cynical and tune out officials trying to lead them.
From Los Angeles Times
In large enough numbers, that can be hard to tune out.
From Los Angeles Times
There are a couple of reasons you might be finding it harder than ever to tune out the squawks, whistles and trills of Los Angeles’ wild parrots.
From Los Angeles Times
These earbuds are designed to be comfortable enough to wear while you sleep and help you tune out ambient noises like a snoring partner or the sounds of a city that never sleeps.
From The Verge
He is always comfortable if his opponent’s biggest argument is that he is being hypocritical, the type of process argument in which he drags his opponent into a gutter of obscure parliamentary procedure that most voters just tune out.
From Washington Post
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.
