Outsourcing

How to spell outsourcing

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce outsourcing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outsourcing mean?

1. nounThe practice of contracting work or services out to an external company rather than handling them internally.

Outsourcing in a sentence

• The firm cut costs by outsourcing its payroll to a specialist agency.

• Outsourcing customer support overseas saved the company millions each year.

Where does outsourcing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern business coinage that joins the everyday English elements 'out', meaning external or away, and 'source', the place from which something is supplied. 'Source' itself travelled into English in the 1300s through Old French 'sourse', a word for a spring or fountain head, which descends from the Latin verb surgere, meaning 'to rise' or 'to spring up', the same root that gives us 'surge' and 'resource'. The compound verb 'to outsource' emerged in American industry around the late 1970s and early 1980s, describing the practice of buying parts or services from an outside supplier rather than producing them in house. The gerund form 'outsourcing' quickly became the standard label for the whole strategy, especially as manufacturing and later office work moved to specialist firms abroad. The spelling trap sits in the middle: the silent stretch 'sour' looks like the word for a sharp taste, yet it is really the 'source' element with its hidden Latin 'rising' sense.

How the word is built

• out- (external, away)
• source (origin, supply; from Latin surgere 'to rise')
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)