outgo

The verb is derived from Middle English outgon (“to go out, depart, leave; to come out, emerge; to escape; to protrude; of a sword: to be drawn; to emanate from (a place); to accompany”),^[1] from Old English ūtgān (“to go out”), Proto-West Germanic *ūtgān (“to go out”), equivalent to out- +‎ go.

Compare Middle English outwenden (“to go out, depart, leave; to escape; to be emitted, fly out from; of a weapon: to be drawn”), which, like modern outgo, had the past tense and past participle form outwent.^[2]

The noun is derived from modern English out- (prefix meaning ‘away from; toward the outside of’) +‎ go. Sense 1 (“cost, expenditure, or outlay”) was probably modelled on income.^[3]

• Verb:
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌaʊtˈɡəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌaʊtˈɡoʊ/
  • Rhymes: -əʊ
• Noun:
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtɡəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtˌɡoʊ/
• Hyphenation: out‧go

outgo (third-person singular simple present outgoes, present participle outgoing, simple past outwent, past participle outgone)

1. (transitive)
   1. (archaic) To go further than (someone or something); to exceed, to go beyond, to surpass.

      Synonym: outdo

      • 1577, Iohn Calvin, “The .XXI. Sermon, which is the Sixth vppon the Third Chapter, and the First vppon the Fourth”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The Sermons of M. Iohn Calvin, vpon the Epistle of S. Paule too the Ephesians. , London: Lucas Harison, and George Byshop, →OCLC, folio 150, recto:

        So then it will alwayes bee found trew, that God outgoeth all our prayers, and all our wiſhes.

      • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Aprill. Ægloga Quarta.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: , London: Hugh Singleton, , →OCLC, folio 12, recto:

        Shepheards delights he dooth them all forſweare, / Hys pleaſaunt Pipe, whych made vs meriment, / He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare / His wonted ſongs, wherein he all outwent.

      • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Iune. Ægloga Sexta.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: , London: Hugh Singleton, , →OCLC, folio 23, verso:

        But when they came, where thou thy ſkill didſt ſhowe, / They drewe abacke, as halfe with ſhame confound, / Shepheard to ſee, them in theyr art outgoe.

      • 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: , London: for Henry Bell, , published 1622, →OCLC, [Act III]:

        [T]hy head ſhall ouerlooke the reſt, / As much as thou in rage out vvent'ſt the reſt.

      • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Men are Punished by Too-much Opinionating Themselves in a Place without Reason”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book I, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC, page 23:

        Valor hath his limites, as other vertues have: vvhich if a man out-go, hee ſhall finde himſelfe in the traine of vice: […]

      • 1626 (date written), John Milton, “At a Vacation Exercise in the Colledge, ”, in Poems, &c. upon Several Occasions, London: Tho Dring , published 1673, →OCLC, page 67:

        In vvorth and excellence he ſhall out-go them, / Yet being above them, he ſhall be belovv them; […]

      • , George Herbert, “The Reprisall”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, , →OCLC, page 28:

        Ah! vvas it not enough that thou / By thy eternall glorie didſt outgo me?

      • 1702, N[icholas] Rowe, Tamerlane. A Tragedy. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 38:

        I fear me, thou out-go'ſt the Prophet's Order; / And bring's his venerable Name, to ſhelter / A Rudeneſs ill becoming thee to uſe, / Or me to ſuffer.

      • 1788 July 20, George Washington, “G^o. Washington to Jonathⁿ. Trumbull Esq^r.”, in Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States of America. 1786–1870. Part 1.—Letters and Papers Relating to the Constitution, to July 31, 1788 (Bulletin of the Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State; no. 11, part 1), Washington, D.C.: Department of State, published September 1905, →OCLC, page 808:

        As the infamy of the conduct of Rhode Island outgoes all precedent, so the influence of her counsels can be of no prejudice.

      • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto First. The Castle.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: J Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, ; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XXIX, page 51:

        Danger, long travel, want, or woe, / Soon change the form that best we know— / For deadly fear can time outgo, / And blaunch at once the hair; […]

      • 1836, [Ralph Waldo Emerson], “Discipline”, in Nature, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 58:

        When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; […] —it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.

      • 1849, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XXV”, in John A Carlyle, transl., Dante’s Divine Comedy: The Inferno. A Literal Prose Translation, , London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC, pages 296–297:

        Ah, Pistoia! Pistoia! why dost thou not decree to burn thyself outright, that thou mayest endure no longer, since thou outgoest thy seed in evil-doing?

      • 1876, Herman Melville, “Canto XXX. The Valley of Decision.”, in Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. , volume II, New York, N.Y.: G P Putnam’s Sons , →OCLC, part IV (Bethlehem), page 559:

        Ye do outgo / Mad Korah. Boy, this is the Dale / Of Doom, God's last assizes; so, / Curb thee; even if sharp grief assail, / Respect these precincts lest thou know / An ill.

      • 1909, John M[ackinnon] Robertson, “The Learning of Shakespeare”, in Montaigne and Shakespeare: And Other Essays on Cognate Questions, 2nd edition, London: Adam and Charles Black, →OCLC, part I, pages 301–302:

        As Professor [John] Fiske outgoes [William] Maginn, Professor [John Churton] Collins outgoes Fiske. He ascribes to [William] Shakespeare, in effect, a greater facility in Latin than is possessed by many professional scholars, because much of Latin is for any man far harder, more elliptic, more obscure than is any modern French for a cultivated modern Englishman.

   2. (obsolete)
      1. To experience, go through, or undergo (something).
         • 1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “[Amoretti.] Sonnet LX”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. , London: [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC:

           So ſince the vvinged God his planet cleare, / began in me to moue, one yeare is ſpent: / the vvhich doth longer vnto me appeare, / then al thoſe fourty vvhich my life outvvent.

      2. To travel faster than (someone or something); to outstrip, to overtake.

         Synonyms: outdistance, outrun, pass

         • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. , part II (books IV–VI), London: [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 282:

           So trauelling, he chaunſt far off to heed, / A Damzell, flying on a palfrey faſt / Before tvvo Knights, […] Yet fled ſhe faſt, and both them farre outvvent, / Carried vvith vvings of feare, like fovvle aghaſt, / VVith locks all looſe, and rayment all to rent; […]

         • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: , London: Nath Ponder , →OCLC, page 164:

           VVhat, ſhall vve talk further vvith him? or out-go him at preſent? and ſo leave him to think of vvhat he hath heard already; and then ſtop again for him aftervvards, and ſee if by degrees vve can do any good of him?

         • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: , London: Nath Ponder , →OCLC, page 206:

           Then ſaid By-ends, […] I muſt do as I did before you overtook me, even go by my ſelf, untill ſome overtake me that vvill be glad of my Company. Then Chriſtian and Hopeful outvvent him, and vvent till they came at a delicate Plain, called Eaſe, vvhere they vvent vvith much content; but that plain vvas but narrovv, ſo they vvere quickly got over it.

         • 1678, R[alph] Cudworth, chapter V, in The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: Richard Royston, , →OCLC, page 781:

           For as much as Time, is alvvaies Scattered and Stretched out in Length, and Diſtance, one moment follovving after another; but Eternity remaineth in the ſame, vvithout any Flux, and yet nevertheleſs outgoeth Time, and tranſcendeth the Flux thereof, though ſeeming to be ſtretched and ſpun out more into Length.

         • 1742, Henry Fielding, “A Surprizing Instance of Mr. Adams’s Short Memory, with the Unfortunate Consequences which It Brought on Joseph”, in The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. , volume I, London: A Millar, , →OCLC, book II, page 138:

           The tvvo Travellers ſet out together, one on horeſback, the other on foot: Novv as it generally happens that he on horſeback out-goes him on foot, the Cuſtom is, that vvhen he arrives at the Diſtance agreed on, he is to diſmount, tie the Horſe to ſome Gate, Tree, Poſt, or other thing, and then proceed on foot; vvhen the other comes up to the Horſe, he unties him, mounts and gallops on, […]

         • 1889, William Morris, “Otter and His Folk Come into Mid-mark”, in A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark , London: Reeves and Turner , →OCLC, page 126:

           Ever he gazed earnestly on the main battle of the Romans, and what they were doing, and presently it became clear to him that they would outgo him and come to the ford, and then he wotted well that they would set on him just when their light-armed were on his flank and his rearward, and then it would go hard but they would break their array and all would be lost: […]

2. (intransitive)
   1. (archaic except poetic and British, regional) To go out, to set forth, to set out.
      • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Maye. Ægloga Quinta.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: , London: Hugh Singleton, , →OCLC, folio 16, verso:

        I ſawe a ſhole of ſhepheardes outgoe, / With ſinging, and ſhouting, and iolly chere: […]

      • 1845, James Russell Lowell, “First Conversation. Chaucer.”, in Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, →OCLC, page 99:

        And in the middle sea they chanced to meet; / Up goes the trump; with shots and shouts they greet, / And hasten them to set on with the sun; / With grisly sound outgoeth the great gun, […]

      • 1890, John Bragg, “Life”, in Sonnets and Short Poems (Second Series), Leeds, Yorkshire: Alfred W. Inman, →OCLC, page 13:

        There is a God, the One only Creator, / The All-Animator; / From Him the light of life ever outgoeth,— / Life's river floweth: […]

   2. (obsolete) To go too far; to overextend or overreach.
      • 1668, John Denham, “On My Lord Croft’s and My Journey into Poland, from whence We Brought 10000 l. for His Majesty by the Decimation of His Scottish Subjects there”, in Poems and Translations, with The Sophy, 4th edition, London: for H Herringman , →OCLC, stanza 10, page 68:

        But John / (Our Friend) Molleſſon, / Thought us to have out-gone / VVith a quaint Invention.

• out-go

• outgoer
• outgoing (adjective, noun)
• outgone (adjective)

• outgang

outgo (countable and uncountable, plural outgos or outgoes)

1. (countable, business, archaic except India) A cost, expenditure, or outlay.

   Synonym: outgoing

   Antonyms: income, receipts, takings

   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Economy”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 60:

     My farm outgoes for the first season were, for implements, seed, work, &c., $14 72½.

   • 1860, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay III. Wealth.”, in The Conduct of Life, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 101:

     The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new and steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth begins.

   • 1912 July 12, Joseph Cross, District Judge, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, “Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co. v. Herold, Internal Revenue Collector”, in The Federal Reporter  (National Reporter System, United States Series), permanent edition, volume 198, St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., published 1913, →OCLC, page 215:

     [T]he word "income" means, as already shown, that which has come in, and not that which might have come in, but did not. If expenditure means what has been paid out, or outgoes, then income means what has come in, or receipts.

   • 1918 June 3, Joseph McKenna, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (delivering the court’s opinion), quoting the Government’s submissions, “Lynch, Collector of Internal Revenue for the District of Minnesota, v. Turrish”, in Ernest Knaebel (reporter), United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1917 , volume 247, New York, N.Y.: The Banks Law Publishing Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 227:

     Net income ('profits') is the difference between income and outgo.

   • 1933 March 4, Franklin D[elano] Roosevelt, “Franklin D. Roosevelt: Inaugural Address”, in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington 1789 to Richard Milhous Nixon 1969 (91st Congress, 1st Session, House Document; 91-142), Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1969, →OCLC, page 237:

     Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo.

   • 1977 March 7–13, “Food”, in Chanchal Sarkar, editor, Data India, number 10, New Delhi: K. Bhupal for the Press Institute of India, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 154, column 1:

     Under a refinancing scheme, initiated by the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation (ARDC), banks which refinance the construction of godowns for FCI [Food Corporation of India] are to be refinanced up to 80% of their outgos.

   • 1983 October 5, E[arl] Thomas Coleman, “Statement of Gene L. Swackhamer, President, Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore”, in Rural Electrification and Telephone Revolving Fund Self-sufficiency Act of 1983: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, and Rural Development of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 3050 (Serial No. 98-37), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published 1984, →OCLC, page 271:

     Your revenues and your outgos, then, are not the same.

   • 2008, Pradip Baijal, “How Did I Get into This?”, in Disinvestment in India: I Lose and You Gain, Delhi: Pearson Longman, →ISBN, page 6:

     By the early 1980s the outgos to the fund were huge and the Government of India started looking for ways to reduce the fertilizer subsidies.

2. (uncountable) The act or process of going out; (countable) an instance of this; an outgoing.

   Synonyms: departure, efflux, exit, outflow

   Antonyms: arrival, entrance, incoming, inflow, ingoing, influx

   • 1898, Kate Douglas Wiggin, “Susanna Crum Couldna Say”, in Penelope’s Progress , Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company , →OCLC, part 1st (In Town), page 35:

     Once again, after establishing an equally obvious fact, I succeeded in wringing from her the reluctant admission, "It depends," but she was so shattered by the bulk and force of this outgo, so fearful that in some way she had imperiled her life or reputation, so anxious concerning the effect that her unwilling testimony might have upon unborn generations, that she was of no real service the rest of the day.

   • 1914, George W[ashington] Cable, “Questions”, in Gideon’s Band: A Tale of the Mississippi, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 37:

     The stately Votaress, with her towering funnels lost in the upper night, was running well inshore under a point, wrapped in a world-wide silence broken only by the placid outgo of her own vast breath, the soft rush of her torrential footsteps far below, and the answering rustle of the nearer shore.

   • 1946 February 12, John Taber, “Statement of Rear Adm. W. J. Carter, Chief of Bureau, Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, Accompanied by Capt. J. M. Bregar, Commander S. M. Trott, and E. Midkiff, Bureau of Supplies and Accounts”, in Robert P Williams, editor, Second Supplemental Surplus Appropriation Rescission Bill, 1946: Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Seventy-ninth Congress, Second Session, on the Second Supplemental Surplus Appropriation Rescission Bill, 1946 , Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 526:

     I suppose you have been getting a lot of deliveries and no outgoes. Is that about the size of it?

   • 1949 March 28, Robert H[oughwout] Jackson, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (delivering the court’s opinion), “United States v. Women’s Sportswear Manufacturers Association et al.”, in Walter Wyatt (reporter), United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1948 , volume 336, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 462:

     Thus the industry in Massachusetts subsists on a constant influx of cloth and outgo of garments which pass through the hands of the stitching contractors for an essential operation.

   • 1976 September, David Namkoong, “Description of System”, in Tests of a Reduced-scale Experimental Model of a Building Solar Heating–Cooling System (NASA Technical Memorandum; X-3416), Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, →OCLC, page 4:

     The resulting output signal served as the reference that the measured heat inputs and outgos attempted to match.

   • 1983, J. L. Charley, B. N. Richards, “Nutrient Allocation in Plant Communities: Mineral Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems”, in O. L. Lange, P. S. Nobel, C. B. Osmond, H. Ziegler, editors, Physiological Plant Ecology IV: Ecosystem Processes: Mineral Cycling, Productivity and Man’s Influence (Encyclopedia of Plant Physiology, New Series; 12D), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, →DOI, →ISBN, page 38:

     In the case of those nutrient elements, such as N and S, which occur predominantly in organic combination, measurement of the balance between atmospheric inputs and drainage outgoes may indicate may indicate the degree of control or relative leakiness of the ecosystem, provided due allowance is made for short-term fluctuations that could be meaningless.

3. (archaic or obsolete)
   1. (countable) The means by which something flows or goes out; an outlet.
      • 1869, Samuel Bowles, “Introductory Chapter”, in Our New West. Records of Travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. , Hartford, Conn.: Hartford Publishing Co. , →OCLC, page 26:

        The great Salt Lake of Utah is its principal body of water, and this has no visible outgo, though richly fed from various quarters.

      • 1882 February 2, D. , “Syphonage in Practice”, in The Sanitary Engineer, volume 5, number 10, New York, N.Y.: E. P. Coby & Co., →OCLC, page 208, columns 2–3:

        Of course the fact is not overlooked that the outgos of main drain traps are not usually ventilated against syphonage, but they afford an excellent example of a trap on a nearly horizontal pipe.

   2. (uncountable, rare) A (quantity of a) substance or thing that has flowed out; an outflow.

      Synonyms: effluxion, issue, outcome

      • 1870, Friedrich Bleek, “The Petrine Epistles”, in William Urwick, transl., edited by Johannes Friedrich Bleek, An Introduction to the New Testament.  (Clark’s Foreign Theological Library, Fourth Series; XXVI), volume II, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, , →OCLC, § 217 (The Second Petrine Epistle), page 175:

        It cannot be doubted that the same persons are here meant as are spoken of in the preceding chapter, for their scorn was the outgo of the same frivolous mind which is there said to distinguish them.

      • 1899, H[erbert] W[illiam] Conn, “Is the Body a Machine?”, in The Story of the Living Machine: A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard to the Mechanism which Controls the Phenomena of Living Activity, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, part I (The Running of the Living Machine), pages 23–24:

        In these experiments it is necessary to take account not only of the food eaten, but of the actual amount of this food which is used by the body. […] Estimates of the solids, liquids, and gases given off from his body must be obtained, for to carry out the experiment an exact balance must be made between the income and the outgo.

      • 1912, Linda Burfield Hazzard, “When and Why to Fast”, in Fasting for the Cure of Disease, 4th edition, New York, N.Y.: The Physical Culture Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 37:

        And the arms of the scale of intake and outgo must likewise remain at level, and they do so maintain balance in health.

• outgoing (noun)

• go out, go-out