To sound out somebody is to ask carefully what they think before you act. A quiet enquiry, made before anything is committed.
The caution is the whole point, since sounding somebody out lets you withdraw if the answer is wrong, and that is exactly why it happens before formal approaches. It splits round an object. The image comes from sounding the depth of water with a line before sailing into it. There is a separate phonics sense, since children sound out a word letter by letter.
1phrasesound outTo discreetly find out somebody's opinion before acting.
“Somebody should sound out the committee before we write.”
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 25 of A Man Called Ove.
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