Word.ws English Dictionary

outspan

outspan verb: to release oxen from a harness.

Verb

outspan (third-person singular simple present outspans, present participle outspanning, simple past and past participle outspanned)

  1. (South Africa, transitive) To release oxen from a harness.
    • We had outspanned on in a flat covered with close grass about two feet high…The wagons, four in number, were drawn up off the road two abreast.1976, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Jock of the Bushveld, Longman, ISBN 058261231, page 126

Noun

outspan (plural outspans)

  1. (South Africa) The place where one releases oxen from a harness.
    • At the outspan or on the road or footpath he shouldered them aside as one walks through standing corn, not aggressively, but with the superb indifference of right and habit unquestioned.1976, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Jock of the Bushveld, Longman, ISBN 058261231, page 202
  2. An area on a farm kept available for travellers to rest and refresh their animals.

Forms of outspan

Verb
third-person singular presentoutspans
present participleoutspanning
past participleoutspanned
pastoutspanned
Noun
pluraloutspans

Origin of outspan

From out + span. Compare Afrikaans uitspan.

Questions about outspan

What does outspan mean?
Outspan means to release oxen from a harness.
What part of speech is outspan?
Outspan can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of outspan?
The past tense of outspan is outspanned.

Words near outspan in the dictionary

  1. outsourcery
  2. outsources
  3. outsourcing
  4. outsourcings
  5. outspake
  6. outspan
  7. outspanned
  8. outspanning
  9. outspans
  10. outsparkle
  11. outsparkled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: outspan (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: “outspan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/outspan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.