MEANING
1. Relating to visible appearance or external reality rather than private thoughts or inner conditions.
2. Moving or directed away from an inside, centre, or point of departure.
Use it for
showing composure that conceals distress; distinguishing public behaviour from private feeling; contrasting surface appearance with an underlying conditionContrasts visible appearance with private experience, while preserving the separate direction of movement away from a centre. Writing functions: Appearance / Movement.
Words that belong together
- outward calm
- an outward appearance
- outward signs of distress
On the page
Her outward calm survived the announcement, though she could no longer feel her fingers.
The house showed no outward sign of the damage spreading beneath its floors.
A pale ripple moved outward from the place where the chain had vanished.
On the outward journey, the hills had looked close enough to touch.
Word forms
- Base
- outward
Usage notes
Adjective and adverb; adverb variant outwards is not another entry. Generally non-gradable in the directional sense; no normal -er/-est forms. Register: neutral. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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