outdoor

Formsoutdoors, outdooring, outdoored

1. 1
   adjective

   Situated in, designed for use in, or taking place in the open air.

   The city hosts a series of outdoor concerts every July.

   Outdoor furniture has to withstand months of rain and harsh sun.

   Similaroutside, open-air, alfresco

   Oppositeindoor, inside

   Note

   The core sense, built plainly from out- and door: whatever belongs beyond the threshold. It pairs naturally with indoor, and like it the word is not comparable, so nothing is "more outdoor" than something else. Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1963) shows a common use, a "good outdoor coat," meaning clothing kept for going out. Open-air and alfresco suit events and meals, while outdoor fits anything at all.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of charity or relief: given to or received by poor people outside a workhouse or similar institution, or independently of one.

   The parish granted outdoor relief to widows who could partly support themselves at home.

   Local guardians argued that outdoor assistance cost less than housing paupers in the workhouse.

   Oppositeindoor

   Note

   A term from the history of poor relief, almost always met in the phrase outdoor relief. Here the door belongs to the workhouse rather than to the house. The aid went to people living at home, as opposed to those taken inside the institution. Roy Porter's The Greatest Benefit to Mankind (1997) notes that Benthamites judged the old Poor Law's outdoor relief "a recipe for waste and idleness." Do not read the open-air meaning into it.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To present or display a child publicly after it has been named.

   Relatives traveled from three towns to see the couple outdoor their first child.

   The baby was outdoored a week after her birth, once her name had been chosen.

   Note

   A naming custom turned into an English verb, used in some African communities and especially in Ghanaian English. It is transitive and takes the child as its object, so it often appears in the passive: the baby was outdoored. Its forms are regular. Outdooring also names the ceremony itself, and the third-person outdoors shares its spelling with the everyday adverb.

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