CAST ABOUT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cast about mean? 

• CAST ABOUT (verb)
  The verb CAST ABOUT has 1 sense:

1. search anxiously

  Familiarity information: CAST ABOUT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAST ABOUT (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Search anxiously

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

beat about; cast about; cast around

Hypernyms (to "cast about" is one way to...):

explore; research; search (inquire into)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

After having found such a motif, he cast about for the particular persons and particular location in time and space wherewith and wherein to utter the universal thing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“When Em'ly got strong again,” said Mr. Peggotty, after another short interval of silence, “she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old awe, seemed to wilt and to shrink in upon himself and grow small, as he cast about in his mind for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He drew up lists of effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them properly.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)