outsider
noun
Simple meaning
Someone who is not part of a community or organization.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
owtsyderSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
aʊtˈsaɪdɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
One who is not part of a community or organization.
A newcomer with little or no experience in an organization or community.
A competitor or contestant who has little chance of winning; a long shot.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: One who is not part of a community or organization.
Used this way, outsider is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use outsider
- “While the initiated easily understand the symbols, they are wholly inaccessible to outsiders.”noun
- “Seeing the mess professional politicians have made of things is it any wonder the electorate is beginning to prefer outsiders.”noun
- “Johnny was an outsider at this years karate tournament, but he still managed to win second place out of sheer determination.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A genre of art and outdoor constructions made by untrained artists who do not recognize themselves as artists.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.