different between outside vs off

English

Alternative forms

• owtside (obsolete)

Etymology

From out +? side.

Pronunciation

• (adjective): enPR: out?s?d, IPA^(key): /?a?tsa?d/
• (adverb, noun, preposition): enPR: out-s?d?, IPA^(key): /a?t?sa?d/
• Rhymes: -a?d

Noun

outside (plural outsides)

1. The part of something that faces out; the outer surface.

   He's repainting the outside of his house.

   • 1653, Thomas Urquhart (translator), François Rabelais, Gargantua, "The Author's Prologue to the First Book"

     Silenes of old swere little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such-like counterfeited pictures at discretion, ...

   • 1890, Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives,

     The outside of the building gives no valuable clew.

   • 1911, Cab, article in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition,

     The number of persons which the cab is licensed to carry must be painted at the back on the outside.

2. The external appearance of someone or something.

   Her outside was stern, but inside was a heart of gold.

3. The space beyond some limit or boundary.

   Viewed from the outside, the building seemed unremarkable.

   • I in great Transport threw open the Door of my Chamber, and found the greatest Part of the Family standing on the Outside in a very great Consternation

   • 1967, The Bee Gees, New York Mining Disaster 1941,

     Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones? / Do you know what it's like on the outside?

   • 1982, Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, Malcolm Mclaren, Buffalo Gals

     Four buffalo gals go 'round the outside / 'Round the outside / 'Round the outside / Four buffalo gals go 'round the outside / And do-si-do your partners.

4. The furthest limit, as to number, quantity, extent, etc.

5. The part of a road towards the central division: towards the right if one drives on the left, or towards the left if one drives on the right.

6. The side of a curved road, racetrack etc. that has the longer arc length; the side of a racetrack furthest from the interior of the course or some other point of reference.

7. (dated, Britain, colloquial) A passenger riding on the outside of a coach or carriage.
   • 1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

     The outsides did as outsides always do. They were very cheerful and talkative at the beginning of every stage, and very dismal and sleepy in the middle […]

Usage notes

• Rarely used with an.

Translations

Adjective

outside (comparative more outside, superlative most outside)

1. Of or pertaining to the outer surface, limit or boundary.
   • 1901, Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career,

     Household drudgery, woodcutting, milking, and gardening soon roughen the hands and dim the outside polish.
2. Of, pertaining to or originating from beyond the outer surface, limit or boundary.
   • 1938 (believed written c.1933), H. P. Lovecraft, The Book,

     Dogs had a fear of me, for they felt the outside shadow which never left my side.

   • 1976, Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles,

     It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.

   • 1993 September 3, Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Report to the Justice and Treasury Departments regarding law enforcement interaction with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas,

     Nor did they consult with outside persons in religious studies, sociology of religion, or psychology of religion.

3. Away from the interior or center of something.
   • 2003, Timothy Noakes, Lore of Running, Human Kinetics (?ISBN), page 731:

     As the centripetal force is an inverse function of the radius of the curve, it follows that the runner in the outside lane will be less affected than the runner in the inside lane.

4. Originating from, arranged by, or being someone outside an organization, group, etc.

   The Board did not trust outside information about their rivals.

   • 1968, Barney G. Glaser, Organizational Careers, Transaction Publishers (?ISBN), page 23:

     Positions in organizations are being vacated continually through death and retirement, promotion and demotion. Replacements may be drawn from the outside ("an outside man") or from within the organization.

5. Extending or going beyond the borders or scope of an organization, group, etc.
   • 2004, Viktor Zander, Identity and Marginality among New Australians: Religion and Ethnicity in Victoria's Slavic Baptist Community, Walter de Gruyter (?ISBN), page 88:

     Although a marriage to "one of ours" was encouraged, an outside marriage was not condemned if it would be to a believer of a similar faith. Some of the immigrants' children married Australians and joined Australian Churches.

6. (baseball, of a pitch) Away (far) from the batter as it crosses home plate.

7. Reaching the extreme or farthest limit, as to extent, quantity, etc; maximum.

8. Positioned towards the central division of a road: towards the right-hand side if one drives on the left, or left-hand side if one drives on the right.

   the outside lane of the motorway

9. (of a person) Not legally married to or related to (e.g. not born in wedlock to), and/or not residing with, a specified other person (parent, child, or partner); (of a marriage, relationship, etc) existing between two such people. (Compare out of wedlock, nonresidential.)

   Antonym: inside

   • 1994, Caroline H. Bledsoe, Gilles Pison, Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa: contemporary anthropological and demographic perspectives (Oxford University Press, USA):

     Isaac Nathan's Christian wife served as godmother to his outside son, born after their Christian marriage. She allowed the boy, but not his mother, to live with her, her husband, and their two children.

   • 2008, Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen, Polygamy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, A&C Black (?ISBN), page 158:

     An 'outside wife' has limited social recognition and status because her husband typically refuses to declare her publicly as his wife. She also has much less social and politico-jural recognition than an 'inside wife' [...]

   • 2009, Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Yoruba women, work, and social change (Indiana Univ. Pr.):

     The legitimacy and inheritance rights of children were questionable, because colonial law did not acknowledge the validity of an outside marriage contracted after a monogamous, Christian one.

   • 2013, John C.S. Fray, Janice G Douglas, Pathophysiology of Hypertension in Blacks, Springer (?ISBN), page 78:

     A husband will thus have responsibilities to his own household, as well as to those in which his “outside” children reside.

   • 2014, Mary Jo Maynes, Ann Waltner, Birgitte Soland, Gender, Kinship and Power, page 256:

     The latter is her “outside” child in reference to her conjugal tie at the time. Should she leave this man and move in again with the father of her first child, then the three younger children assume the place of “outside” children, [...]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:outside.

Translations

Adverb

outside (comparative more outside, superlative most outside)

1. To or in the outdoors or outside; to or in an area that is beyond the scope, limits, or borders of a given place.

   Residents of the city rarely ventured outside.

   2. (colloquial) Not in prison.
      • 1964, Merfyn Turner, A Pretty Sort of Prison, page 15:

        It is the prison that supports the image of the criminal [...] he's lost when he's outside.

2. Outdoors.

Translations

Preposition

outside

1. On the outside of, not inside (something, such as a building).
   • 1919 June 28, the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, Treaty of Versailles, Part IV—German Rights and Interests outside Germany,

     In territory outside her European frontiers as fixed by the present Treaty, Germany renounces all rights, titles and privileges whatever in or over territory which belonged to her or to her allies, and all rights, titles and privileges whatever their origin which she held as against the Allied and Associated Powers.

   • 1982, 97th Congress of the United States, Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982,

     There is jurisdiction over an offense under section 601 committed outside the United States if the individual committing the offense is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence (as defined in section 101(a)(20) of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
2. Beyond the scope, limits, or borders of.

   tourists from outside the country

3. Near, but not in.
   • 1898, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds,

     Up the hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the town of Richmond there was no trace of the Black Smoke.

   • 2002, Jane Green, Bookends, 2003 trade paperback edition, ?ISBN, outside back cover:

     Jane Green […] lives outside New York City with her husband and children.

   • 2010 December, Patricia Corrigan, "Beyond Congregations", OY! (magazine section), St. Louis Jewish Light, volume 63, number 50, page 24:

     Kastner lives in University City with his wife, Leslie Cohen, who works for the Jewish Federation, and their 17-month-old old^[sic] son. Kastner grew up outside Cleveland.

4. (usually with “of”) Except, apart from.

Antonyms

• inside

Related terms

• withoutside

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• dies out, side out, sudoite, tedious

English

Alternative forms

• offn

Etymology

From Middle English of, from Old English of, af, æf (“from, off, away”), from Proto-Germanic *ab (“from”), from Proto-Indo-European *h?epo (“from, off, back”). Cognate with Scots of, af (“off, away”), West Frisian af, ôf (“off, away”), Dutch af (“off, from”), German Low German of (“off, from”), German ab (“off, from”), Danish af (“of, off”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish av (“of, off”), Icelandic af (“of, off”), Gothic ???????? (af, “of, from”); and with Latin ab (“of, from, by”), Ancient Greek ??? (apó, “from”), and others. Doublet of of.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f/
• (Conservative RP) IPA^(key): /??f/
• (General American) enPR: ?f, IPA^(key): /?f/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /?f/
• Rhymes: -?f
• Rhymes: -??f

Adverb

off (not comparable)

1. In a direction away from the speaker or object.
   • So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

2. Into a state of non-operation or non-existence.

3. So as to remove or separate, or be removed or separated.

4. (theater) Offstage.

   noises off

5. Used in various other ways specific to individual idiomatic phrases, e.g. bring off, show off, put off, tell off, etc. See the entry for the individual phrase.

Usage notes

• off is used as an adverbial particle in a number of phrasal verbs (shake off, show off, switch off, take off, and so forth). This is not to be confused with prepositional use (e.g. jump off the table, keep off the grass; see below).

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

off (comparative more off, superlative most off)

1. Inoperative, disabled.

   Antonym: on

2. Cancelled; not happening.

   The party's off because the hostess is sick.

3. Not fitted; not being worn.

   Your feet will feel better once those tight boots are off.

   The drink spilled out of the bottle because the top was off.

4. Rancid, rotten, gone bad.

   Antonym: fresh

5. (by extension, Australia, slang) Disgusting, repulsive, abhorrent.
6. Less than normal, in temperament or in result.

7. Inappropriate; untoward.

   I felt that his comments were a bit off.

8. (in phrases such as 'well off', 'poorly off', etc., and in 'how?' questions) Circumstanced.

   Our family used to be well off; now we're very badly off.

   How are you off for milk? Shall I get you some more from the shop?
9. Started on the way.
   • 1922 , James Joyce, Ulysses, chapter V:^[1]

     —Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?

     —Hello, M’Coy. Nowhere in particular.
10. Far; off to the side.
    • 1937, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Harper Perennial (2000), p.151:

      He came in, took a look and squinched down into a chair in an off corner and didn’t open his mouth.

11. Designating a time when one is not strictly attentive to business or affairs, or is absent from a post, and, hence, a time when affairs are not urgent.

12. (in phrases such as 'off day') Designating a time when one is not performing to the best of one's abilities.
13. (of a dish on a menu) Presently unavailable.

    — I'll have the chicken please.

    — Sorry, chicken's off today.

14. (Britain, in relation to a vehicle) On the side furthest from the kerb (the right-hand side if one drives on the left).
    • 1963, Jack Schaefer: Monte Walsh, page 174:

      The man and the horse came closer and were Sonny Jacobs of the Diamond Six and a smallish neat sorrel definitely favouring its off forefoot.

    The off front wheel came loose.

    Antonym: near

15. (cricket) In, or towards the half of the field away from the batsman's legs; the right side for a right-handed batsman.

    Antonyms: on, leg

Derived terms

Translations

Preposition

off

1. Not positioned upon; away from a position upon.

2. Detached, separated, excluded or disconnected from; away from a position of attachment or connection to.

3. Used to indicate the location or direction of one thing relative to another, implying adjacency or accessibility via.

4. Used to express location at sea relative to land or mainland.

5. Removed or subtracted from.

6. No longer wanting or taking.

7. (colloquial, more properly 'from') Out of the possession of.

8. Placed after a number (of products or parts, as if a unit), in commerce or engineering.

   Tantalum bar 6 off 3/8" Dia × 12" — Atom, Great Britain Atomic Energy Authority, 1972

   samples submitted … 12 off Thermistors type 1K3A531 … — BSI test report for shock and vibration testing, 2000

Antonyms

• on

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

off (third-person singular simple present offs, present participle offing, simple past and past participle offed)

1. (transitive, slang) To kill.
2. (transitive, Singapore, Philippines) To switch off.

Translations

Noun

off (uncountable)

1. (usually in phrases such as 'from the off', 'at the off', etc.) Beginning; starting point.

Further reading

• off at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• off on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• FFO

Central Franconian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f/

Etymology 1

From Middle High German ofte, chiefly through German oft.

Adverb

off (comparative öfter, superlative et öffste)

1. (Ripuarian) often

   Synonyms: deck, (obsolete in some places, dated in others) decks

Alternative forms

• oft (Moselle Franconian)

Etymology 2

Conjunction

off

1. Alternative spelling of ov

Spanish

Etymology

From English off.

Adjective

off (invariable)

1. off-screen
2. (theater) off-Broadway; minor-league; small-time

Derived terms

• en off
• voz en off