Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb In a direction away from the inside.
  • adverb Away from the center or middle.
  • adverb Away from a usual place.
  • adverb Out of normal position.
  • adverb Out-of-bounds.
  • adverb From inside a building or shelter into the open air; outside.
  • adverb In the open air; outside.
  • adverb From within a container or source.
  • adverb From among others.
  • adverb To exhaustion or depletion.
  • adverb Into extinction or imperceptibility.
  • adverb To a finish or conclusion.
  • adverb To the fullest extent or degree; thoroughly.
  • adverb In or into competition or directed effort.
  • adverb In or into a state of unconsciousness.
  • adverb Into being or evident existence.
  • adverb Into public circulation.
  • adverb Into view.
  • adverb Without inhibition; boldly.
  • adverb Into possession of another or others; into distribution.
  • adverb Into disuse or an unfashionable status.
  • adverb Into a state of deprivation or loss.
  • adverb In the time following; afterward.
  • adverb Baseball So as to be retired, or counted as an out.
  • adverb On strike.
  • adjective Exterior; external.
  • adjective Directed away from a place or center; outgoing.
  • adjective Traveling or landing out-of-bounds.
  • adjective Not operating or operational.
  • adjective Extinguished.
  • adjective Unconscious.
  • adjective Not to be considered or permitted.
  • adjective No longer fashionable.
  • adjective No longer possessing or supplied with something.
  • adjective Informal Openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
  • adjective Baseball Not allowed to continue to bat or run; retired.
  • preposition Forth from; through.
  • preposition Beyond or outside of.
  • preposition Within the area of.
  • noun One that is out, especially one who is out of power.
  • noun Informal A means of escape.
  • noun A play in which a batter or base runner is retired.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English ūt; see ud- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a combination of Old English ūt (from Proto-Germanic *ūt) and ūte. Cognate with West Frisian út, Dutch uit, German aus, Norwegian/Swedish ut, ute, Danish ud, ude.

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Examples

  • Speak ever so slowly, so carefully picking out which immaculately groomed flowers to point out to you, and then stepping quietly backwards in their oh so finely-turned out  gentlemen's clothes and letting you go on ahead to admire things from your own safely chosen distances, your own freedom's comfortable as a big fat overstuffed chair perspective.

    The Undertakers of the Dead by Unseen Hands 2010

  • *Sits down next to PB and whips her bicycle pump out of her pack, fits it with special balloon-blowing-up attachment and helps out*

    Snuggies - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2010

  • If acting out of friendship is composed of purposes, dispositions to have purposes, and the like, where these are purposes properly so-called, and thus not essentially described by the phrase ˜out of friendship™, there seems ¦ no guarantee that the person cares about and likes, has friendship for, the

    Friendship Helm, Bennett 2009

  • I looked at Dan and tried to not cry, which freaked him out I think, because he got that “Oh Christ, please don't freak out” look on his face.

    Apple: We Don't Have A Battery For Your 30GB iPod, So Take This 80GB iPod For Free Instead - The Consumerist 2008

  • But most of the agent-searching advice out there says to seek out agents who represent authors whose work is similar to ours -even to *point those similarities out* to the agent in our queries.

    Similarity Miss Snark 2005

  • That strategy would certainly intimidate schools into putting evolution into the classroom– and balance out the fact that they are often intimidated into taking it *out* of the classroom.

    Blogging the Dover Trial - The Panda's Thumb 2005

  • Not to mention the massive nosebleeds that just start out of nowhere and go until I pass out…

    goldylockz22 Diary Entry goldylockz22 2003

  • For the sake of national security, Teller wanted the United States to find out, _and to be the first to find out_, whether or not the so-called "super bomb" was feasible.

    Analog Science Fiction and Fact 2003

  • So I did something I actually regret to this day, a decision I feel cheated me out of a huge life experience… when the invite finally came through to come over and hang out…

    ugotsoul Diary Entry ugotsoul 2002

  • He may have looked at himself or had,   uh, sought out somebody else to help him look at himselfand to find out  what was actually the cause of his problem.

    TEDBUNDY Michaud, S G & Aynesworth H 1989

  • The US tech firm celebrated the “topping out” of its new UK headquarters as the final beam was hoisted into place on Friday, marking the end of major construction of its horizontal skyscraper, nicknamed the “landscraper”.

    Behold London’s ‘landscraper’! Google’s new UK HQ – as long as the Shard is tall Joanna Partridge 2022

  • Mastering out, as academics call it, meant making the very stigmatized decision to end my studies with a master’s degree, which is viewed, to many in my field, as a consolation prize.

    The Unwritten Laws of Physics for Black Women Condé Nast 2022

  • In Arco, she was the only climber, of any age, to top out (i.e., reach the top) on the four bouldering problems—three of them on the first try.

    The Most Talented Climber in the World? Condé Nast 2016

Comments

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  • "Where'd you go?"

    "Out."

    "What'd you do?"

    "Nothing."

    November 12, 2007

  • A contronym: both visible (e.g., stars are out) *and* invisible (e.g., lights out.)

    May 14, 2008