Outgoing

How to spell outgoing

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce outgoing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outgoing mean?

1. adjectiveNaturally friendly, sociable, and comfortable meeting and talking to new people.
2. adjectiveLeaving a place or office; in the process of going out or being sent out.

Outgoing in a sentence

• Her outgoing manner made her perfect for the front desk.

• The outgoing mail is collected from the tray at four o'clock.

• The new colleague was warm and outgoing, chatting with everyone by lunchtime.

• The outgoing chief executive handed over to her successor last week.

Where does outgoing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native English compound built from two of the oldest pieces of the language: the prefix 'out', meaning 'away' or 'forth', and the verb 'go', both inherited from Old English (ut and gan respectively, with Germanic roots shared across Dutch and German). The present participle ending '-ing' turns 'go out' into a describing word, so the literal sense is simply 'going out'. From that base the word branched into two everyday meanings: the concrete sense of something departing or leaving (outgoing mail, an outgoing tide, an outgoing manager) appears from around the early 1600s, while the figurative sense of a person who readily goes out toward others, that is, friendly and sociable, is a later development that became common in the twentieth century. British usage also turned the plural noun 'outgoings' into a standard term for money going out, meaning regular expenses. Because every part is plain English, the only spelling thing to watch is keeping the single 't' of 'out' next to the 'g' of 'go' without doubling.

How the word is built

• out- (away, forth)
• go (to move)
• -ing (adjective/noun suffix)