Word.ws English Dictionary

out the window

out the window prepositional phrase: made obsolete; altered drastically as a result of situational change.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Made obsolete; altered drastically as a result of situational change.
    • Women can run, blacks can run, all sorts of people can run. We didn't think people like that could win in years past. That conventional wisdom is out the window now. That's good news.1990 June 8, “Newshour”, in PBS Newshour
    • it's bad for principles that we thought were the basis for post Cold War security -- for example, non-aggression, pluralism, tolerance, things of that kind, and they 're out the window now. I mean this- this framework, for these principles, are the antithesis of principles that we allegedly were...1995 September 9, “Aspects of the Bosnian Agreement are Discussed”, in NPR_Weekend
  2. (colloquial, idiomatic) Gone; departed; disappeared.
    • Life had gone out the window and scampered off.2011, David Seaman, The Real Meaning of Life, page 178

Examples of out the window in a sentence

  • it's bad for principles that we thought were the basis for post Cold War security -- for example, non-aggression, pluralism, tolerance, things of that kind, and they 're out the window now.1995 September 9, “Aspects of the Bosnian Agreement are Discussed”, in NPR_Weekend:
  • You have to realize that privacy is out the window.1995 November 3, “Nightline”, in ABC Nightline:
  • Is it okay to throw formality out the window?2007 April 13, “"SEND"; Etiquette Guide for Using E-mail (review)”, in ABC_GMA:

Questions about out the window

What does out the window mean?
Out the window means made obsolete; altered drastically as a result of situational change.
How do you use out the window in a sentence?
it's bad for principles that we thought were the basis for post Cold War security -- for example, non-aggression, pluralism, tolerance, things of that kind, and they 're out the window now.
What part of speech is out the window?
Out the window is a prepositional phrase.

Words near out the window in the dictionary

  1. Out Rawcliffe
  2. out sick
  3. out the ass
  4. out the blue
  5. out the wazoo
  6. out the window
  7. out the ying yang
  8. out there
  9. out to
  10. out to get someone
  11. out to lunch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out the window (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-out the window.ogg.

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