Word.ws English Dictionary

outspin

outspin verb: to spin out; finish; exhaust.

Verb

outspin (third-person singular simple present outspins, present participle outspinning, simple past and past participle outspun)

  1. (transitive) To spin out; finish; exhaust.
    • […] again and again as if she could not tear herself away, yet each time dancing farther forward, swaying to and fro. Finally, her arms raised, she began twirling around, faster and faster, as if she were trying to outspin time itself.1999, Jean Fritz, Margot Tomes, Homesick, my own story
    • His protective senior staff decided the secretary was being outspun.2006, Karen DeYoung, Soldier: the life of Colin Powell
  2. (transitive) To exceed in spinning; exceed in spinning thread.
    • As if we could outspin the Fatal Sisters.1851, Edward Young, Night thoughts on life, death and immortality
    • Old Cigfolla, who despite stiff joints could outspin any of them, drew out a fine thread of flax.2007, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lady of Avalon

Forms of outspin

third-person singular presentoutspins
present participleoutspinning
past participleoutspun
pastoutspun

Origin of outspin

From out- + spin.

Questions about outspin

What does outspin mean?
Outspin means to spin out; finish; exhaust.
What part of speech is outspin?
Outspin is a verb.
What is the past tense of outspin?
The past tense of outspin is outspun.

Words near outspin in the dictionary

  1. outspews
  2. outspied
  3. outspies
  4. outspill
  5. outspills
  6. outspin
  7. outspinning
  8. outspins
  9. outspit
  10. outspits
  11. outspitting

Source and license

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