From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdrop out phrasal verb1 SEto no longer do an activity or belong to a group The group gets smaller as members move away or drop out.2 to leave a school or university before your course has finished → dropout of Bill dropped out of college after his first year.3 SSPPPto refuse to take part in ordinary society because you do not agree with its principles → dropout In the 60s, Leary urged kids to ‘Turn on, tune in and drop out.’4 if an Internet connection drops out, it suddenly stops, usually for a short time → drop→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
drop out• He advised young people to "turn on, tune in, and drop out".• He was a dropout and a hippy back in the '60s.• A group of young people dropped out and set up a commune in the middle of the forest.• One third of the city's students drop out before graduation.• He dropped out of art college and joined a band.• She decided to drop out of the rat race because she couldn't stand working 60 hours a week.• While kids in the affluent sixties could afford to drop out, things were very different ten years later.drop of• Kelly dropped out of college after one semester.• In extreme cases they can drop out of position. with disastrous results.• Don dropped out of school in June, dashing all hope of be-coming a lawyer.• At 16, Williams dropped out of school to sing in nightclubs and the flourishing dance scene at South Side social clubs.• Many of them drop out of school, too exhausted to study.• You want to drop out of school?• Then, too, his thinking had hardly dropped out of the blue.• In 1988, soon after losing the Illinois primary to George Bush, Dole dropped out of the race.• The survey was conducted March 2-3 before Alexander and Lugar dropped out of the race. 