Outfield

How to spell outfield

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce outfield

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outfield mean?

1. nounThe outer part of a cricket or baseball playing area, farthest from the central play, or the players positioned there.

Outfield in a sentence

• The batter lifted the ball deep into the outfield.

• Three fielders patrolled the outfield during the final innings.

Where does outfield come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining the Old English elements 'out' (meaning outer or away from the middle) and 'field', which comes from Old English 'feld', the open or cleared land used for grazing and growing crops. The word 'outfield' was first used in Scotland and northern England for the outlying, less fertile land of a farm that lay beyond the well manured 'infield' near the buildings. By the nineteenth century the same logic was carried into ball games: in cricket and then baseball the 'outfield' became the broad outer region of the playing area, the part farthest from the central action at the wicket or the diamond. Because both halves of the word are still everyday English, the spelling holds no real surprises beyond simply running the two parts together as one solid word.

How the word is built

• out- (outer, away from the centre)
• field (open ground)