English

Alternative forms

• lookee, lookie

Verb

looky

1. (sometimes humorous, colloquial) Look.
   • 1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

     Lookee here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be.

   • 1877, Burdette, Robert Jones. The Rise and Fall of the Mustache: And Other ‘Hawk-eyetems’. Burlington Publishing Co., 1877. p. 15.

     "… Cain would shout ‘Oh, lookee, lookee pa! what’s that?’"

   • 1936, The American Mercury

     "Looky thar!" "All right, I can see that hole, all right, but the argument was whether the earth was round or flat, and I say it's round!"

   • 1989, Elizabeth Jolley, The Travelling Entertainer

     The old man is cackling. "Looky here, looky here." He's got four little bright coins on his outstretched trembling hand.

Usage notes

Looky is almost always used imperatively, and followed by "here", "there", or "at".

References

• Sihler, Andrew Littleton. Language History: An Introduction. John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2000. p. 6.

See also

• lookit