outlying

Etymology

It is formed from English out- + lying,^[2][3][4][5] with the present participle of lie (to be situated), after the verb phrase “lie out”.^[6] The OED compares the verb outlie.^[2] The verb lie is from Middle English lien, from Old English licgan.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Situated apart from the main mass or body of something; peripheral, detached: 1647, in John Cleveland's The Character of a London Diurnall.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has 1647,^[6] while the 1989 edition of the OED had 1663,^[7] Etymonline the 1660s^[5] and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate about 1690.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From "lying outside certain limits" the word passed by 1651 to "far from the centre of an area, remote", the main sense today.^[2][5] From 1664 it was used of animals living in the open rather than in an enclosure or lair, now chiefly a hunting term.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "not in the common course of order; removed from something else", quoting Temple's "four out-lying empires".^[9] In Scots, ootlying beasts were those not housed in winter, and in Lanarkshire an oot-lying friend was a distant relation.^[10]

Timeline

• 1647 – situated apart from the main body; peripheral, detached.^[2][6]
• 1651 – situated far from a centre; remote, out-of-the-way.^[2]
• 1664 – of an animal, living in the open, not confined in an enclosure.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Situated far from a centre or main body; remote: The new clinic serves the outlying farms and villages.^{[6][11][8][2]}
2. Lying outside set or accepted limits; extraneous.^[6][7][3]
3. (hunting) Of an animal, living in the open rather than within an enclosure or lair.^[2][3]

Related words

• outlier
• outlie
• lie
• lying

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin