feel out

1. 1.

   try to learn someone's opinions and intentions

   “I have to sound out the new professor”

   Synonymscheck outsound out

   Broaderquestion

Questions about feel out

What does feel out mean?

feel out means "try to learn someone's opinions and intentions".

What is another word for feel out?

Close synonyms include check out, sound out. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is feel out a common word?

feel out is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.