Word.ws English Dictionary

externs

externs is the plural of extern.

Meaning of extern

Noun (1)

extern (plural externs)

  1. A person affiliated with an institution in a lesser capacity, for example, as a non-resident or as a part-time affiliate.
    1. A day-scholar.
  2. Outward form or part; exterior.

Noun (2)

extern (plural externs)

  1. In the C and C++ programming languages, a variable that can be separately declared in many places, all of them referring to the same variable.
    • Finally, get rid of the two function declarations and two externs that we added at the top of TEFIL.CPP so that we could support file_open().1995, Martin L. Rinehart, Learn C++ Today!, page 552

See all 5 meanings of extern

Questions about externs

What is externs the plural of?
Externs is the plural of extern.

Words near externs in the dictionary

  1. externment
  2. externments
  3. externomedian
  4. externopyramidisation
  5. externopyramidization
  6. externs
  7. externship
  8. externships
  9. extero-
  10. exteroception
  11. exteroceptions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: externs (page history and authors); extern (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “externs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/externs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.