zoom out

British

verb

photog films television to decrease rapidly the magnification of the image of a distant object by means of a zoom lens
to consider the essential points, rather than the details of a subject

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

“He took me into this place called Outer Time, where we could spy on all of history. It’s hard to describe, but it was kind of like being in an airplane and looking down on everything happening down on the ground. Or, I don’t know, like Google Earth, where you can focus in close on one spot, then zoom out and get the broader view too.”

From Literature

Investors need to zoom out—way out.

From The Wall Street Journal

“The minute they showed the zoom out of all the cameras syncing to scan for a target, my heart sank to my stomach and I was filled with dread,” one commenter wrote on the YouTube video.

From The Wall Street Journal

“This is the zoom button. Zoom out and find the nearest house. I’m going to check out the road.”

From Literature

But remove all of that talk of numbers and industry business and zoom out.

From Salon

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