Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To go beyond; exceed or surpass.
  • noun Something that goes out, especially an expenditure or a cost.
  • noun The act or process of going out.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To go beyond; advance so as to pass in going; go faster or further than; leave behind; outdistance.
  • To outdo; exceed; surpass.
  • noun That which goes out; outflow; specifically, expenditure: the opposite of income.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To go beyond; to exceed in swiftness; to surpass; to outdo.
  • transitive verb obsolete To circumvent; to overreach.
  • noun That which goes out, or is paid out; outlay; expenditure; -- the opposite of income.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb poetic To go out, to set forth.
  • verb archaic To go further; to exceed or surpass; go beyond.
  • verb To overtake; to travel faster than.
  • verb To outdo; exceed; surpass.
  • noun The act or process of going out.
  • noun A quantity of a substance or thing that has flowed out; an outflow.
  • noun business, commerce an expenditure, cost or outlay.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb be or do something to a greater degree
  • noun money paid out; an amount spent

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English outgon, from Old English ūtgān ("to go out"), from Proto-Germanic *ūt + *gānan (“to go out”), equivalent to out- +‎ go. Cognate with Scots outgae ("to go out, depart"), Dutch uitgaan, German ausgehen, Swedish utgå.

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Examples

  • Then let from his breast, for he burst with rage, the Weder-Geat prince a word outgo; stormed the stark-heart; stern went ringing and clear his cry 'neath the cliff-rocks gray.

    Beowulf Anonymous 1887

  • Then let from his breast, for he burst with rage, the Weder-Geat prince a word outgo; stormed the stark-heart; stern went ringing and clear his cry ’neath the cliff-rocks gray.

    Beowulf, translated by Francis Gummere 2003

  • Then let from his breast, for he burst with rage, the Weder-Geat prince a word outgo; stormed the stark-heart; stern went ringing and clear his cry ’neath the cliff-rocks gray.

    Beowulf 2003

  • Then let from his breast, for he burst with rage, the Weder-Geat prince a word outgo; stormed the stark-heart; stern went ringing and clear his cry ’neath the cliff-rocks gray.

    Beowulf, translated by Francis Gummere 2003

  • Can't we just line-up the outgoing cabal of treasonous conspirators (if indeed the welfare dependant electorate chooses to 'outgo' them - by no means certain, imho) against the wall of the Citadel on the day of the Queen's Birthday Parade and have a contingent from the Brigade of Guards shoot the the whole feckin'lot of 'em, as the Band of The Royal Marines plays Colonel Bogey, followed by Beyond Dull Care as their rancid carcasses are removed in a City of Westminster shit-cart.

    Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister? 2010

  • Higher operating expenses and tax outgo crimped net profit growth to 4%.

    Paper Tigers No More Pallavi Pengonda of Mint 2011

  • More precisely, intragovernmental debt consists of promises to repay certain federal government accounts, such as the Social Security Trust Funds, for amounts they lent to the Treasury in years when their earmarked revenues exceeded their outgo for benefits and other costs.

    Jared Bernstein: The Debt Crisis: It's All Connected, Man Jared Bernstein 2011

  • More precisely, intragovernmental debt consists of promises to repay certain federal government accounts, such as the Social Security Trust Funds, for amounts they lent to the Treasury in years when their earmarked revenues exceeded their outgo for benefits and other costs.

    Jared Bernstein: The Debt Crisis: It's All Connected, Man Jared Bernstein 2011

  • Isn't it ironic that the association must now adopt a budget to match income with outgo, just as the great state of Wisconsin must do, or go broke?

    Wisconsin Union Faces the Real World 2011

  • But, assuming the entire acquisition is funded by debt at a cost of about 7% Libor plus 1.9% percentage point, the total interest outgo works out to about A$126 million.

    Pricey Pact Pallavi Pengonda of Mint 2011

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