look up

verb looks up · looking up · looked up

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see look, up. We stayed up late to look up at the stars.
2. idiomatic, intransitive To have better prospects. Things started looking up after Jim moved back in with his parents.
3. idiomatic, transitive To obtain, or seek to obtain, information about something. The United States Supreme Court, for example, has decided that a book or a film can be banned if it arouses the prurient interests of the average person. Now prurient—I looked that up—it means having itching morbid or lewd and lascivious desires.
4. idiomatic, transitive To obtain information about something from a reference book. I didn't know what a mitochondrion was until I looked it up in a dictionary.
5. idiomatic, transitive To enter a query into a database or search engine. If you look up a bunch of random characters, there will probably be no results.
6. idiomatic, transitive To reconnect or meet with someone that one used to know. Look me up next time you’re in town—if you can bring me some new ideas.