out of the woodwork

Idioms

Emerging from obscurity or a place of seclusion. It often is put as come (or crawl) out of the woodwork, as in The candidates for this job were coming out of the woodwork. The expression alludes to insects crawling out of the interior wooden fittings of a house, such as baseboards and moldings. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Casting for the reboot began late last year, Roberts said, and people “have come out of the woodwork” since, with some messaging her directly on social media.

From Los Angeles Times

“I heard from everybody I’ve ever met. Everybody came out of the woodwork,” McCurdy said.

From Los Angeles Times

It would be absolutely amazing if somebody from that time would come out of the woodwork.

From Los Angeles Times

“People were coming out of the woodwork,” says Stark.

From Literature

“They should have known people were going to come out of the woodwork and do stuff like this,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023