Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective idiomatic
Crazy ,nutty ,loony .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
out + there
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word out there.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Forested commented on the word out there
Of the ten examples shown of "out there" in use, only one is matched by the three defining adjectives or synonyms. It seems to me that this phrase is one of our most recent thoughtlessnesses. Why? Because there is no "out there." We posit one with the phrase, but where is it, what is it? "Out there" is what a grammarian or linguist might call a "suprasegmental," a phrasal locative, a phrasal adverb, a "phatic communion." It gains us nothing. In this category too I would put "going forward." Take any sentence uttered or written with "out there" in it, delete those two words (that one phrase), and no harm is done to sense because the phrase added nothing to it. In fact (and the same goes for "going forward"), the sense is complete already, sans phrase.
January 2, 2012