Word.ws English Dictionary

out-

out- prefix: external to, on the outside of.

Prefix

out-

  1. External to, on the outside of
    • outback
    • outhouse
  2. Toward the outside of, away from
    • outcast
    • outlead
    Synonyms:
    off-, ab-, apo-, de-, away, off
  3. Forms verbs with the sense of surpassing or exceeding the prefixed word. This construction is productive.
    • outdo
    • outlast
    Synonyms:
    supra-
  4. Greater than
    • outsize
    • outrun
    Synonyms:
    supra-
  5. Beyond
    • The plant's leaves outgrew their box
  6. Completely
    • outfit
    • outwork

Synonyms of out-

6 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

Origin of out-

From Middle English ut-, from Old English ūt- (“out, without, outside”) (also as ūta-, ūtan- (“from or on the outside, without”), as in ūtanweard (“outward, external”)), from Proto-Germanic *ūt- (“out-”). Cognate with Dutch uit-, German aus-, Swedish ut-, Icelandic út-. More at out.

Questions about out-

What does out- mean?
Out- means external to, on the outside of.
What part of speech is out-?
Out- is a prefix.

Words near out- in the dictionary

  1. out trades
  2. out upon
  3. out west
  4. out with it
  5. out'n
  6. out-
  7. out-and-back
  8. out-and-home
  9. out-and-out
  10. out-and-outer
  11. out-and-outers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out- (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.

Last updated:

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