Output

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The quantity or goods a factory, worker or process generates ; the information or signal a computer or device sends to another system ; to generate or send something forth as a result of work
2. What a plant, factory or person yields over a period ; the data a machine transmits to a display or another device ; to turn out or transmit something as a product of effort
3. The total of what is manufactured or created by a process ; the results a computer or circuit delivers ; to produce something or release it from a system

Etymology: The word "output" is a plain compound of "out" and "put," and its history is about a shift in grammatical role more than any dramatic change in meaning. The verb "put out" meant to put something outside or to bring forth, and English later turned that verb phrase into a noun, so that what was put out became the thing produced. The noun sense, meaning the amount or quantity something yields, is the one that has spread most widely, especially in manufacturing, economics and computing, where "output" is set against "input." Its ordinary use as a verb, to produce or send out, follows the same pattern, with the noun formed from the phrasal verb rather than the other way round.

Synonyms: yield, production, result, product, outcome

Antonyms: input, intake, consumption