The Phrasal Verb 'Look Into' Explained
- Phrasal Verbs Explained
- Jul 11
- 7 min read
An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'look into' from a native speaker, with lots of examples in context
Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them.
How well do you know the phrasal verb 'look into'? If this is a completely new one for you, then you are in luck as it is a nice and easy phrasal verb with only two meanings. In this post, I will explain both of these useful meanings for you and provide with lots of example sentences to show you how they are used by native speakers. So, without further ado let's get into it....
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Click to jump to each one)
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THE BASICS
LOOK INTO: KEY INFORMATION
Usage | Common |
Number of meanings | 2 |
Past tense forms | Looked into / Looked into |
Separable? | No |
As a starting point for this post, let's take a look at the basics and consider the individual component words 'look' and 'into'.
Firstly, we have the super common verb 'to look', which has a number of meanings in English, depending on which prepositional particle it is combined with. For this particular phrasal verb, we mean in the sense of directing our eyes in a direction in order to see something.
Why are you looking at me like that?
John looks around the room.
Secondly, we have the prepositional particle 'into', which I know from my experience with English learners is not the easiest preposition to understand. All you need to remember with 'into' is that is describes a movement to an end point which is inside something.
This "movement and entry" meaning of 'into' is often also conveyed in the phrasal verbs that it features in (go into). Alternatively, it can also be used in phrasal verbs to give the ideas of a change of state (turn into) and collision (crash into), among others.
Now that we have looked at the basics, let's take a look at the different meanings of our chosen phrasal verb 'look into'....
MEANING 1 : To look inside something
CEFR Language Level | B1 - Intermediate |
Usage | Medium |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To look at, to look, to peer into, to stare into |
Separable? | No |
The first of the two meanings of 'look into' is the literal meaning of the combination of the two words, which is simply 'to look inside something'.
Nouns commonly used with this application....
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To clarify, when we use 'look into' literally, it means to look with our eyes towards the interior or inside of something. The speaker is normally (but not always) on the outside or exterior.
As such, it is possible to use it with all nouns for things that have a physical inside space, like a house, a hole or a box. Interestingly, we often use it with the noun 'window' despite the fact that a window is just glass and does not have an interior space. What we in fact mean when we say this is that we are looking into the building or room behind the glass.
A robin was sitting on a tree and looking into my house.
The curious cat looked into the box as he knew a mouse was hiding inside it.
Ashley looked into the cave but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
The child looked into the aquarium and watched the fish swimming around.
I looked into the room and saw that nobody was there.
The police looked into the bag and found it was empty.
There are also certain nouns in English with which we often use the particle 'in' but which do not have a physical interior space such as light, darkness and future. You should know that we commonly also use this literal application of 'look into' to refer to these nouns too.
When I looked into her eyes, I knew she was telling the truth.
Looking into the future, the outlook for treatment of the disease is very good.
As I looked into the darkness, I thought I could see a pair of eyes looking at me.
WHAT ABOUT IF WE ADD AN EXTRA PREPOSITION?
It is common to combine 'to look into' with an additional preposition such as down, up or back, in order to add extra spatial information to what you are saying.
The additional particle needs to go between look and into, e.g. 'to look up into' or 'to look down into'. Photo: Pexels
The cat is looking down into the drain.
She looked up into the night sky and was amazed by the amount of stars that she could see.
The scientist was looking down into the volcano.
I stood on my doorstep and looked back into my house one more time.
DON'T CONFUSE 'LOOK INTO' WITH 'LOOK IN'
Due to their similarity and closeness in meaning it can be very easy to confuse these two phrasal verbs. In some situations this is not a problem because 'look in' can mean the same as 'look into' but 'look in' is used more commonly by native speakers to say that they are searching for something in a place or inside an interior space e.g. in a bag or a in a room.
LOOK IN: I can't find my keys! I've looked in my bag and in my room and they are definitely not there!
In the above example, it would be incorrect to say "I've looked into my bag and my room" because this would only mean that you looked with your eyes and but did not search inside the room for the keys.
In short, 'look into' is for looking with your eyes, whilst 'look in' is often used for searching.
MEANING 2: To investigate
CEFR Language Level | B2 - Upper Intermediate |
Usage | Common |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potentia, synonyms | To investigate, to scrutinise, to explore |
Separable? | No |
So now we come to the second and most common meaning of 'to look into', which means 'to investigate or to examine information about a particular situation or problem in order to establish what caused it or what needs to be done to resolve it'.
Nouns commonly used with this application:
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This application is very used all the time in business English when a problem has occurred and the employees in the company want to understand what happened and why.
Furthermore, it is also something that you may hear the police or other authority figures say when investigating an alleged crime and they want to learn as much information as possible as they can about it.
We promised the unhappy customer that we would look into the issue that they raised.
The school is looking into reports of bullying.
The team of top scientists has been looking into the effects of climate change on biodiversity in the region and will publish their findings next week.
The IT team looked into the system crash to find out what caused it.
Victoria promised to look into the matter and take appropriate action.
The police are looking into the robbery that happened at the palace last night.
Additionally, this application of 'look into' can simply just be used to talk about researching options for things or learning about a subject before making a decision. For example, if you want to go on holiday to Australia, you may look into different types of accommodation and flights. Alternatively, if a business wants to replace part of their IT infrastructure, they will probably look into different options before making a decision on the most suitable one.
They're looking into new ways to reduce energy consumption.
We need to look into our options before making a final decision.
In terms of formality, I would say that 'look into' is less formal than 'investigate', however 'look into' is frequently used in business English for things such as establishing what has caused a particular issue to arise. 'Investigate' tends to be used by the police when or in large scale formal investigations, however it is normally possibly to use these words interchangeably without causing any problems.
BONUS: More example sentences of 'look into'
'LOOK INTO' FOR BUSINESS USE:
I don't have an answer right now. Can I look into it and come back to you?
The [noun] is being looked into.
The company is looking into the possibility of [verb + ing].......
I need you to urgently look into the matter and give me your feedback.
'LOOK INTO' FOR PERSONAL USE:
When I looked into his eyes, I knew he......
When I looked into the mirror*, I.....
As his mother looked into the room, she.....
The police are looking into the matter.
After looking into it, we decided.....
*With a mirror, it is also possible and common to say "look in a mirror".
We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts.
Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'look into'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!!
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THE END
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