outen

O1U1T1E1N1
/ˈaʊtən/

preposition

Out; out of; out from.

“an outen man”

OriginMiddle English outen ← Old English ūtan ← Proto-West Germanic *ūtanā →
UncommonScrabble 5
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Meanings

outen1

preposition

alternative out'n

  1. archaicdialectalOut; out of; out from.

    […] so if any of you ginks are me frien's yeh better keep outen here so's yeh won't get hurted.

    1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC
    1 more example

    And there was silence again. Then: ‘And you sent that girl away, didn't you? With the money outen that box?’

    1953, James Baldwin, “Gabriel's Prayer”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Classics), London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN
adjectiveouten (comparative more outen, superlative most outen)

comparative more outen · superlative most outen · alternative out'n

  1. dialectalBeing from without; strange; foreign; peculiar.

    an outen man

outen2

verbouten (third-person singular simple present outens, present participle outening, simple past and past participle outened)

present singular third person outens · participle present outening · participle past outened · past outened · alternative out'n

  1. dialectaltransitiveTo put out; extinguish.

    When Susan said good-night and they outened the lights and headed to their respective rooms, Lettie found her most treasured book of poems.

    2017, Beverly Lewis, The Missing, page 274
    1 more example

    I shined the light directly in his eyes, temporarily blinding him, then outened it and ran through the tunnel in the dark as best I could, not knowing where I was going.

    2012, K. A. Kron, Shades of Gray, page 2017

Outen3

proper nounOuten (plural Outens)

plural Outens

  1. A surname from Dutch.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
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Origin

outen · preposition, adjective

  1. Proto-Indo-European*úd“up, over”
  2. Proto-Germanic*ūtanē“from without, outside of”
  3. Proto-West Germanic*ūtanā
  4. Old Englishūtan“from outside, on the outside, without”
  5. Middle Englishouten
  6. Englishouten

From Middle English outen, uten, from Old English ūtan (“from outside, on the outside, without”), from Proto-West Germanic *ūtanā, from Proto-Germanic *ūtanē (“from without, outside of”), from Proto-Indo-European *úd (“up, over”). Cognate with Middle Low German ûten (“out, forth”), German außen (“outside, out”), Swedish utan (“without, free from”). More at out.

More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-West Germanic

Full word history & related roots →

outen · verb

  1. Proto-Indo-European*úd
  2. Proto-Germanic*ūt
  3. Proto-West Germanic*ūt
  4. Old Englishūt
  5. Proto-Germanic*ūt
  6. Proto-Germanic*ūtai
  7. Proto-West Germanic*ūtē
  8. Old Englishūte
  9. Middle Englishoute
  10. Englishout
  11. Englishouten

From out + -en.

Full word history & related roots →

Outen · proper noun

  1. Old EnglishOfa
  2. Old Englishufan
  3. Middle Englishove“above”
  4. EnglishOuten

* As an English surname, topographic surname from Middle English ove (“above”) (from Old English ufan) + toun (“village, town”). Also a variant of Oulton, Oughton (itself from Old English Ofa + tun). * As a Dutch surname, variant spelling of Ooten.

More words from Middle English, Old English

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

outen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/outen

MLA

“outen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/outen. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “outen,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/outen.

Source: outen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.