To drop out is to leave a course or a race before finishing. You started and you are no longer in it.
It takes of. Education uses it most, and the noun dropout means both the person and the rate, so a high dropout rate is a statistic institutions care about. It is a plain description rather than an insult, though it has picked up a faint edge. There is a cultural sense from the 1960s, where dropping out meant leaving conventional society altogether.
1phrasedrop outTo leave a course, race or activity before completing it.
“Nearly a fifth will drop out in the first year.”
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
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