Outdoor

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˌaʊtˈdɔː/

Definitions

1. Relating to or done in the open air rather than inside a building
2. Connected to or taking place in natural environments rather than indoor settings
3. Having a connection to the external environment beyond enclosed spaces

Etymology: "Outdoor" is a plain compound with no hidden story: it joins "out," from Old English "ūt," to "door," from Old English "duru." The sense of "out" here is the sense of being beyond a door, so "outdoor" literally describes what lies outside the doorway. The two parts are both ancient native English words, traceable back through Proto-Germanic to a common Indo-European ancestry, which is why the word feels so homespun. The pairing is a natural one. English long used "out-" as a prefix meaning "outside of" or "beyond," as in "outhouse" and "outside," and "door" was the everyday word for the threshold separating inside from outside. Combining the two gave speakers a compact way to describe anything happening beyond the walls rather than within them.

Synonyms: outside, external, al fresco

Antonyms: indoor, inside