outsource

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *úd

Proto-Germanic *ūt

Proto-Germanic *ūt-

Old English ūt-

Middle English ut-

English out-

Proto-Indo-European *upó

Proto-Italic *supo

Latin sub

Latin sub-

Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ-

Proto-Indo-European *-eti

Proto-Indo-European *h₃réǵeti

Proto-Italic *regō

Latin regō

Latin subrigō

Latin surrigō

Latin surgere

Old French sourdre

Old French soursbor.

Middle English sours

English source

English outsource

From out- + source.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtˌsɔːs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtˌsoɹs/
• (Australia) IPA^(key): /ˈæɔtˌsoːs/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈæʊtˌsoːs/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)s

Verb

outsource (third-person singular simple present outsources, present participle outsourcing, simple past and past participle outsourced)

1. (chiefly US, business, management, transitive) To transfer the management or day-to-day execution of a business function to a third-party service provider.

   They decided to outsource the design and manufacture of the system to a vendor.

   • 2020 April 8, “Network News: Varamis plans electric freight to carry light goods”, in RAIL, number 902, page 17:

     Read said maintenance would be outsourced, with "positive discussions" held with two companies.

   • 2026 August 5, Christian Wolmar, “Burnham offers a fresh perspective for GBR”, in RAIL, number 1067, page 21:

     Outsourcing is a concept that Burnham has already criticised and rightly so. Many train operators outsourced jobs like checking tickets at the gates or cleaning the trains, and therefore the staff had no opportunity to move up through the structure of the railways into managerial jobs.

Synonyms

• farm out, subcontract

Derived terms

• outsourceable
• outsourcee
• outsourcer
• outsourcery
• outsourcing

Translations

transfer of business to a third party

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: externalitzar
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 外包 (zh) (wàibāo), 委外 (zh) (wěiwài), 外判 (zh) (wàipàn), 外購 / 外购 (wàigòu) (purchase from outside)

• Czech: zadávat subdodavatelské zakázky
• Danish: udlicitere n
• Dutch: uitbesteden (nl)
• Finnish: ulkoistaa (fi)
• French: externaliser (fr), sous-traiter (fr)
• Galician: externalizar
• German: auslagern (de)
• Hungarian: kiszervez (hu), alvállalkozásba (ki)ad
• Icelandic: útvista
• Italian: esternalizzare, subappaltare
• Polish: zlecać na zewnątrz impf, zlecić na zewnątrz pf
• Portuguese: terceirizar (pt), externalizar (pt)
• Romanian: externaliza
• Russian: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: externalizar, tercerizar (es), subcontratar (es)
• Swedish: outsource
• Vietnamese: thuê ngoài (vi)

References

• “outsource”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• courteous