noun

• 1A person who does not belong to a particular group.

  ‘to the outsider, glitzy fashion shows may seem an outrageous extravagance’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Before the invention of doctrine, you can distinguish outsiders because they belong to a tribe.’
  • ‘There were the popular kids and then there was me, the outsider who didn't belong to any of the categories that made up our school.’
  • ‘We are faced by an organisation of outsiders completely free from any emotion about how this may affect our community.’
  • ‘‘I felt like an outsider in my own organisation,’ he says, but has since rectified matters.’
  • ‘Louisiana politics seems strange to outsiders, I know, but this bill will not be voted on.’
  • ‘Their view will be that of the outsider, the visitor, the tourist.’
  • ‘They were always treated as outsiders, strangers within the small communities that made up medieval towns.’
  • ‘There is a Japanese proverb that those who live in the temple see outsiders as a little strange.’
  • ‘Imprinted people live in their own world of symbols, and their behavior to an outsider would appear strange.’
  • ‘In their presence, visitors become intellectuals and outsiders looking in.’
  • ‘Certainly, each generation has its conformers, its rebels, and its outsiders.’
  • ‘Almost all of my films of the year came from abroad, or were made in America by foreigners or outsiders.’
  • ‘You may even feel like an outsider - a foreigner in your own country.’
  • ‘When his appointment was originally announced, outsiders were surprised.’
  • ‘Thus English people are apt to conceptualize themselves as individuals, while outsiders are seen as members of groups.’
  • ‘For all his renown as an economist, he was something of an outsider in the economics profession.’

  Synonyms

  stranger, visitor, non-member, odd man out

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1A person who is not accepted by or who is isolated from society.
     ‘she felt that his friends despised her as an outsider’
     More example sentences

     • ‘He presented himself as an honest and virtuous man, a spokesman for the outsiders in society.’
     • ‘It's a celebration of how strong all of us are to persist despite being occasionally seen as outsiders to society.’
     • ‘It would be very difficult for an outsider to be accepted.’
     • ‘We were looking for a word to express the feeling of being an outsider in society, like watching a movie all the time.’
     • ‘Many people accused others of being witches if they disliked them or if they were outsiders in society.’
     • ‘As a nation of the disenfranchised, freaks, and outsiders, we can identify with the yearning to fit in somewhere.’
     • ‘They too were reviled as outsiders, branded as parasites on the indigenous society.’
     • ‘I profess it sometimes is difficult to fit in a society that always considers you an outsider.’
     • ‘That made me even more of an outsider, a freak some people said.’
     • ‘People had loved her mother, but the daughter had always been considered and oddball, an outsider.’
     • ‘His most notable films deal with outsiders on the margins of society, exhibiting insight and compassion rather than easy sentiment.’
     • ‘Instead of isolating people and making them feel like outsiders, it should be an agency of inclusiveness.’
     • ‘Dylan had always been a loner and an outsider; now he was more isolated than ever.’
     • ‘These are not works of an isolate, primitive, or emotionally distraught outsider.’
     • ‘A lot of the group who often feel outsiders in their professional lives are offered a sense of being insiders for a change.’
     • ‘He has always felt somewhat of an outsider, ‘someone who does not wholly belong to where he finds himself.’’
     • ‘Born in tough, blue-collar Pittsburgh to a Polish immigrant family, he was an outsider from the start.’
     • ‘This strange childhood always made him feel like an outsider and music and art were his dual forms of escape.’

• 2A competitor, applicant, etc. thought to have little chance of success.

  ‘he started as a rank outsider for the title’

  More example sentences

  • ‘I'd never have picked dog number 3, a rank outsider with little chance, but I put down my money with complete confidence.’
  • ‘Despite being rated as the rank outsider in the contest, Ms Shortall said she believes a large number of members are undecided.’
  • ‘Beem was a rank outsider to take the title at the start of the week but a final round of 68 gave him a one-shot victory over a charging Tiger Woods.’
  • ‘The oldest gunslinger still in town twanged a hamstring just before this particular high noon, leaving him no more than an outsider's chance of taking part.’
  • ‘But there's still a slim chance that the outsider will win, and that will be enough to keep people watching.’
  • ‘It would be especially memorable for Ringrose, who travelled to the grand prix in Rome in 1961 as a rank outsider but came away with the title.’
  • ‘I read in yesterday's Evening Press that I am one of the rank outsiders for this race, and by the time you read this we'll know whether that status was justified.’
  • ‘After a week when racing has come under scrutiny over trainers allegedly cheating, two rank outsiders made a mockery of the conspiracy theories yesterday.’
  • ‘Scotland will journey southward as rank outsiders.’
  • ‘They'll still be rank outsiders when it comes down to the final four, but my advice to whoever they meet in the semifinals is to tread with caution.’
  • ‘We were rank outsiders the last time and we should have won.’
  • ‘When they failed to qualify for USA 94, to us they were simply regressing to their natural state as rank outsiders.’
  • ‘They are there on merit and merit alone, and they'll neither be upset nor flustered at being rated the rank outsiders.’
  • ‘At the other end of the spectrum, Newry have never reached the final of the cup and will approach this game as rank outsiders.’
  • ‘Waterford were rank outsiders, while Tipp were the hottest of favourites.’
  • ‘Senegal are not, arriving in the last eight as rank outsiders.’
  • ‘The girls were ranked as outsiders to qualify and it is only the third year they had been competing at this level.’
  • ‘Perhaps changing roles from fancied favourites to rank outsiders will not be bad in itself.’
  • ‘Suddenly alarm bells start going off when you realise that not only will you not be getting flowers but even the prospect of a card is a rank outsider.’
  • ‘For that kind of money they will need to bet on a rank outsider.’