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outage

outage

96 4.0
A time when a service like electricity or a website is not available
  • noun
  • /ˈaʊtɪdʒ/
translation icon : interrupción (del servicio)
  • The state's CRED might experience widespread power outages and suffer from damaged power lines.
  • a power outage
  • planned outage
  • cause a power outage

I really want to talk about the cell phone outages.

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Examples

  • The fourth disaster involved a power outage that interrupted the company's data processing.

    Academic text (1998)
  • The severe storm caused a widespread outage that left thousands without electricity for several hours.

  • The power outage got us too.

  • Has the outage hit you yet?

  • I think it's just a power outage.

  • Big power outage knocked out my alarm clock.

  • - Due to the power outage, we cannot accept credit cards, ATM cards, or personal checks.

  • Rescue efforts have been hampered by power outages all along the coast.

  • The power outage to our to our AV, the people running the projector and the audio went out during Adam's presentation.

  • One assumes I don't know because this morning there was a massive global Internet outage that affected news giants like CNN and the New York Times.

Synonyms

down
vsoutage
  • Specialized
547 2.9

Not working because of a fault or repair

refers specifically to a temporary stoppage of a service rather than general inactivity
blackout
vsoutage
87 3.9

A time when the power goes off and places go dark

is broader and includes interruptions to services other than area electrical cuts
power outage
vsoutage
  • US
53 3.0

A time when the electricity goes off

is broader, covering any service interruption not only electric power loss
downtime
vsoutage
  • Specialized
46 4.1

A time when a machine or system is not working, for example during repairs

is the same idea but applies across services, not only technical maintenance periods
out of order
vsoutage
28 2.1

Not working so you cannot use it, like a machine or toilet

focuses on a temporary unavailability of a wider service rather than a single broken device
power failure
vsoutage
15 3.4

A sudden loss of electricity in an area

is more general, applying to many services beyond electric supply interruptions
out of service
vsoutage
15 3.5

Not working or available to use, often for a short time

covers any temporary service stoppage, not only scheduled or taken offline for use
lights-out
vsoutage
4 6.8

A sudden loss of electricity that makes a place dark

covers planned or unplanned stoppages across services, not only sudden power darkening

Antonyms

114 2.4

Something that people can use or get when they need it

3 3.1

Working as it should and ready to use

Compounds

53 3.0

A time when the electricity goes off

How Severe

collapse
350 4.1
blackout
87 3.9
outage
96 4.0
interruption
99 3.0
to glitch
  • Specialized
3 5.8
blip
35 5.3

Surface Forms

outage singular
outages plural

Morphology

outage = (transparent) = out + age

The meaning 'period when a service is not available' follows directly from 'out' (not functioning) plus a nominalizer. [Postprocessing: moved 'out' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Outage comes from out and the ending -age, which can mean 'a time when something is out'. So a power outage is simply the time the electricity is 'out', and a website outage is when the site is 'out' of service.