Meaning
Excluded from the circle of people who are kept informed or who make decisions; not privy to up-to-date information or current discussion. It describes missing knowledge rather than missing skill: the person is behind on news, plans or decisions, most often in a workplace, project or organizational setting. Takes information and inclusion, not competence, as its subject: someone out of the loop lacks news or access, not ability. Almost always implicitly paired with in the loop; being kept out of the loop can carry a suggestion of deliberate exclusion. Regional use: US business English origin; now standard in US, British, Australian and international workplace English.
Origin
The loop is a group of persons among whom information circulates and who make decisions (Ammer, Dictionary of Cliches, who dates the paired in/out terms to the 1970s and notes an earlier synonym for the positive form, in the know, from the late nineteenth century). Wiktionary's earliest citation is from 1973, in The Controller, an air traffic control journal, where automation 'takes the controller out of the loop' - a phrasing that fits Wiktionary's note that the expression is thought by some to have roots in computer or telephony terminology, a human removed from a control loop. A New York Times quotation of 16 September 1976 ('I was out of the loop,' a former Nixon aide explained) shows political use soon after. Merriam-Webster defines the loop as 'a group of people who know about or have influence or control over something'. The positive form in the loop is the commoner in requests (keep me in the loop); the two are equal opposites.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- in the loop
- keep someone in the loop
- loop someone in
Usage Examples
- Nobody told me the deadline had moved - I have been out of the loop since I got back from leave.
- Junior staff were kept out of the loop while the board negotiated the merger terms.
- You will have to brief me from the top; I was out of the loop during the reorganization.