Eat out means to have a meal away from home, at a café or restaurant. The verb takes no object: people simply say let's eat out tonight, and if they want to name the place, they add it with at: eat out at a Thai place.
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eat out + tonight/on Fridays; eat out at + place; eat out or eat in
- We usually eat out on Fridays because nobody wants to cook after a long week.
- Eating out in London is expensive, so most students cook at home.
- On holiday we ate out every evening and tried a lot of local seafood.
What changed
First versionI'm too tired to cook, so let's eat outside tonight.
RevisionI'm too tired to cook, so let's eat out tonight.
It's easy to reach for outside when you mean 'not at home', but eat outside means eating in the open air: in the garden or on a terrace. When you're too tired to cook and go to a café or restaurant, you eat out, so outside was changed to out.
The opposite of eat out is eat in, to have a meal at home: Shall we eat out or eat in tonight? And if you order food to be delivered, in Britain you get a takeaway, and in America you get takeout.
Your turn
It's pouring with rain and the fridge is empty, so let's ___ tonight.
Show the answer
eat out — It's pouring with rain and the fridge is empty, so you need to go somewhere that will feed you: eat out. Eat outside means eating in the open air. Nobody suggests that in the rain, and it wouldn't put any food on the table either.
Write about where you like to eat out. Name the place and say how often you go there.
I eat out at a small Georgian café near my office about twice a month.
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