outs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of out.

   The team needed three outs to close out the game.

   Her contract was full of clever outs that let her leave at any time.

   Note

   Several of these nouns do most of their work in the plural. Card players count their outs, the cards that could still make a hand a winner. A batting side keeps track of its outs. The outs, as a group, are the people out of office, a use that lives almost only in the plural. An escape route works either way: a contract can offer one out or several.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of out.

   The columnist regularly outs public figures who hide their conflicts of interest.

   A leaked email outs the senator as the source of the story.

   Note

   The meaning shifts with what follows the verb. With an object it exposes: a reporter outs an undercover agent, a leak outs a secret, a rumor outs someone as gay or trans. With no object it means coming to light on its own, as when the truth outs. Check which pattern a sentence uses before you read it as an act of exposure by someone.

   Sooner or later, the truth outs.

   However carefully it is buried, a scandal like that usually outs.

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