1821. Egan, Life in London [Dick], 95. Logic . . . was considered an out-and-outer.
1829. Old Song [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 107]. Are they out-and-outers, dearie?
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xl. p. 354. It was discovered that one of the turnkeys had a bed to let. . . . If you'll come with me, I'll show it you at once, said the man. It ain't a large 'un, but it's an out-and-outer to sleep in.
1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, lx. I am the man as is guaranteed . . . to be an out-and-outer in morals.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xvii. Master Clive was pronounced an out-and-outer, a swell, and no mistake.
1877. Five Years' Penal Servitude, iii. She were an out-and-outer in going into shops on the filch.
1888. Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, xx. Isn't he a regular out-and-outer to look at?
1893. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 37. Now one twigs out-and-outers take down wots too spice a'most for the Pis.
Outer, subs. (shooting).—1. That
part of a target used in rifle-shooting,
which is outside the
circles surrounding the bull's-eye;
and (2) a shot which strikes
the outer part of a target.
1884. Times, 23 July. Running through the scoring gamut with an outer, a magpie, and a miss.
Outfit, subs. (colonial).—See quot.
1840.
d.1840. McClure, Rocky Mountains, 211. In the Far West and on the Plains, every thing is an outfit, from a railway train to a pocket-knife. It is applied indiscriminately,—to a wife, a horse, a dog, a cat, or a row of pins.
1889. O'Reilly, Fifty Years on the Trail. . . . The wagon master had the presence of mind to gallop his team out into the prairie, whilst the entire outfit made for the best cover it could find.
1888. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 16 Feb. The fortune we had longed for lay at our feet. . . . That night we let three of the most reckless devils in the outfit into the secret, and the next morning I started for San Francisco.
1888. Missouri Republican, 1 Ap. I returned to Las Vegas with a freighter, whose outfit consisted of six horses and two wagons, one of the latter being a trail vehicle.
Out-Herod. To out-herod
Herod, verb. (colloquial).—To
exceed in excess.
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iii. 2, 15. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: Pray you, avoid it.
1821. Egan, Life in London [Dick's], 23. The author . . . intends to do a great deal, but he does not mean to out-herod Herod.
1845. Poe, Prose Tales, i. 343. The figure in question had out-heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum.
d.1859. De Quincey, Essenes, i. Yet another and a very favourite emperor out-herods even this butcher [Gallienus].
Outing, subs. (colloquial).—1. A
holiday; an out (q.v.).
1860. Haliburton ('Sam Slick'), The Season Ticket, No. vii. I once gave her an outing to London, and when she returned, I asked her how she liked it.
1864. Sun, 28 Dec., Review of Hotten's Sl. Dict. There is no mention of a holiday term in very common use that we ought to have found here alphabetically recorded in 'The Slang Dictionary'—meaning the phrase of an outing.
1879. Jas. Payn, High Spirits (Adventure in a Forest). I only knew Epping Forest as a spot rarely visited save by the wild East Enders on their Sunday outings.
1885. Field, 4 Ap. They got their outing which is a great deal.
2. (provincial).—See quot.
