looker-on

[ look-er-on, -awn ]

noun

, plural look·ers-on.

1. a person who looks on; onlooker; witness; spectator.

Word History and Origins

Origin of looker-on¹

1530–40; look on + -er ¹

Example Sentences

When he arrived in Paris, in the seventeen-forties, at the age of thirty, he was a deracinated looker-on, struggling with complex feelings of envy, fascination, revulsion, and rejection provoked by a self-absorbed élite.

From The New Yorker

If you are to take Wagner at his word he was a mere looker-on in Dresden during what Bakounine contemptuously called "a petty insurrection."

From Project Gutenberg

It is much better and more humane than the whipping and spurring which is so grievous to a sensitive looker-on.

From Project Gutenberg

It is merely the plain narrative of a looker-on, who accompanied the expedition from the commencement of December 1867, when affairs at Zulla were at their worst, to the closing scene at Magdala.

From Project Gutenberg

The honest indignation of the apostles, the visible perturbation of the traitor, are each right in their place, and for the looker-on, but they are nothing to him.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• bystander
• fan
• moviegoer
• observer
• onlooker
• sports fan
• theatergoer
• viewer