Outside

How to spell outside

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce outside

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outside mean?

1. prepositionBeyond the limits or boundary of something, or in the open air rather than indoors.
2. nounThe external surface, edge, or part of something.
3. adjectiveSituated on or coming from the exterior, or originating beyond a group or organisation.

Outside in a sentence

• preposition

  The children played outside until it grew dark.

• noun

  The outside of the kettle was scorched and dull.

• adjective

  The firm hired an outside consultant to review the accounts.

• preposition

  She parked the car just outside the office gates.

• noun

  He painted the outside of the shed a deep green.

• adjective

  The runner overtook two rivals on the outside lane.

Where does outside come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native English compound, joining the Old English adverb and preposition 'ut' (later 'out'), meaning 'away from the inside', with the noun 'sīde', meaning a flank, edge, or surface. Both elements are firmly Germanic in origin, and 'sīde' is related to the same root that gives us the modern sense of the side of a body or object. The compound itself appears in writing from around the late 1500s, first as a noun for the outer surface of something and soon afterwards as a preposition and adverb describing a position beyond an enclosure. Because both halves are ordinary everyday words, the spelling is wholly predictable once you see it as 'out' plus 'side', which is the surest way to remember it. There is no silent letter or foreign quirk to trip over, only the habit of running two short familiar words together into one.

How the word is built

• out- (beyond, exterior)
• side (a surface or edge, from Old English sīde)