farm out

present singular third person farms out · participle present farming out · participle past farmed out · past farmed out

1. idiomatictransitivebusinessTo contract or subcontract (a task, responsibility, etc.) to another.

   Near-synonyms: contract out, sub out, outsource (all often synonymous)

   4 more examples

   Every Tehsildary is farmed out in villages to the Gours or head-men.

   c. 1800, Munro's Life, iii. 92

   These companies are simply paper companies . . . they farm out the contracts to the real builders.

   1911, Upton Sinclair, The Machine, act II

   The summer of 1976 founnd Jacqui at the Pied Piper in Provincetown doing disco seven nights a week. Come fall, Jacqui farmed out her talents to four separate gay bars — three in Boston and one in Tyngsboro, Mass.

   1977 December 31, Lisa Nussbaum, “Jacqui Mac: Bringing Her Dreams Together”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 26, page 10

   The U.S. military had hoped to farm out the Bagram detainees to prisons run by Afghanistan and other nations.

   2009 January 5, Mark Thompson, “Another Gitmo Grows in Afghanistan”, in Time

   Synonyms: contract out, sub out, outsource

present singular third person farms out · participle present farming out · participle past farmed out · past farmed out

1. Northern EnglandTo clear or clean out; empty out.

   Farm out the stable and pigsty.