Meaning & use
out of the woodwork
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiominformal
Appearing suddenly in large numbers from nowhere, typically people who were unseen until something made them want to appear.
Grammar: Used after come or crawl: people came out of the woodwork.
Patterns
- come out of the woodwork
- crawl out of the woodwork
As soon as she won the lottery, long-lost cousins came out of the woodwork.
Critics always come out of the woodwork when a project starts to fail.
Once the band became famous, old classmates crawled out of the woodwork to claim they were friends.
Common combinations
- come out of the woodwork
- Offers of help came out of the woodwork after the flood.
- crawl out of the woodwork
- Every expert in town crawled out of the woodwork.
- all the fans coming out of the woodwork
- There are fans coming out of the woodwork now that the team is winning.
- emerge from the woodwork
- Witnesses began to emerge from the woodwork.
Synonyms and how they differ
- appear
- Appear is neutral and plain, whereas out of the woodwork suggests a sudden, perhaps opportunistic arrival.
- surface
- Surface also means to come into view, but it has no sense of crowds appearing because of a reward.
- turn up
- Turn up is casual and describes arriving, while out of the woodwork stresses surprise at how many people arrive.
Opposites
Word family
- woodwork noun
- the wooden parts of a building, or the craft of making things from wood
- woodworker noun
- a person who makes things from wood
- woodworm noun
- a beetle larva that damages wood
Commonly confused: out of the woodwork or out of the blue?
out of the woodwork vs out of the blue
Out of the blue describes something unexpected happening; out of the woodwork describes people suddenly appearing.
Practice
After the charity raised a huge sum, many people who had never helped before suddenly asked for a share. Which phrase describes this?
Choose one answer.
Out of the woodwork describes people appearing in numbers when they see an advantage. Out of the blue describes an unexpected event, not a group of people emerging.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “out of the woodwork”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.