drop out

present singular third person drops out · participle present dropping out · participle past dropped out · past dropped out

1. idiomaticTo leave (school, a race, etc.) prematurely and voluntarily.

   Nothing went well in high school, so he dropped out.

   5 more examples

   He [Bill Gates] dropped out of a better school than I dropped out of.

   2015, Aaron Sorkin, Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, spoken by Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender)

   I’m an unlikely speaker, not just because I dropped out, but because we’re technically in the same generation.

   2017 May 25, Mark Zuckerberg, “Mark Zuckerberg’s Commencement address at Harvard”, in The Harvard Gazette

   After all this time, the little girl who watched her father get beheaded, who was captured and impressed as her enemy’s servant, who was captured again and taken to the site of her family’s massacre, who enrolled at assassin school, who went blind, who dropped out to pursue vengeance, the woman who endured all that by focusing on her hit list can be swayed from her course by the prospect of her family and her home.

   2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2017

   Altman has long been viewed as a Silicon Valley wunderkind. In the tradition of other tech founders before him, Altman dropped out of Stanford in 2005 to launch his social-networking app, Loopt, which he later sold for $43m.

   2023 November 18, Blake Montgomery, Dani Anguiano, “OpenAI fires co-founder and CEO Sam Altman for allegedly lying to company board”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Huguette Diakabana remembers when she had to drop out of school at age 10 — until a mysterious donor came to her rescue.

   2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR

2. To opt out of conventional society.
3. usuallyelectronic signalTo be lost or momentarily interrupted.

   I can't make phone calls because the line keeps dropping out.

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drop, out.

   Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.

   1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

5. intransitiveOf a trapdoor or similarTo give way under someone.

   The board he was walking on dropped out.

   Synonyms: fall out

6. figurativelyintransitiveusuallyOf the ground; floor; snow; a worldview or foundation; Of the ground; floor; snow; a worldview or foundationTo cause someone to slip and/or fall down.

   The ground dropped out from under him.

   1 more example

   When she left him, his world dropped out beneath him.

   Synonyms: fall out

7. slangtransitiveTo dismiss, break up with or abandon (someone).