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🪖 To go around 🧠 To outsmart
to outflank

to outflank

5 7.2
To move around the side of an enemy to attack from behind
  • verb
  • /aʊtˈflæŋk/
translation icon : flanquear
  • We're trying to outflank Porterfield's armies!
  • outflank their defenses
  • outflank his enemy
  • outflank our troops

The miners tried to outflank the toughest positions, especially at Blair and Crooked Creek, but machine gun and rifle fire forced them back.

Examples

  • We've got to outflank them.

    The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

  • General of the Army Douglas MacArthur organized X Corps in August 1950 to carry out his plan to outflank the North Korean Army with an amphibious landing at Inchon.

    Academic text (1995)

  • They will go around and try to outflank you.

    The Great Raid (2005)

  • If the Persians found it, they could outflank you.

    Meet the Spartans (2008)

  • The Persians could use it to outflank us.

    300 (2007)

  • If we go along this ridgeline, we can probably outflank it.

    Firestorm (1998)

  • The task of the commander was to outflank his enemy, envelop him, and destroy his forces.

    Academic text (1999)

  • They outflanked us, so we had to withdraw.

    Risen (2016)

  • Sherman's forces are now halted; prisoners report he dares not seek to outflank us again for fear of the casualties he would sustain from our rifles.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The general devised a strategy to outflank the enemy by circumventing their defenses.

Synonyms

to flank
vsto outflank
60 5.0

To move to the side of something, often to gain an advantage

involves moving around the side specifically to gain battlefield advantage
to go around
vsto outflank
  • Specialized
49 5.1

Move around the side of an enemy to attack from behind

is a deliberate battlefield move aiming to gain a tactical advantage

How Successful

to encircle
33 3.4
to surround
∞ 1.7
to outflank
5 7.2
to bypass
119 4.7
to skirt
16 4.4

Surface Forms

outflank infinitive
outflanked past
outflanked past participle
outflanking present participle
outflanks third person singular

Morphology

outflank = flank (transparent) = out + flank

The military/tactical sense is a direct literal combination of 'out-' (move beyond/surpass) and 'flank' (to move around the side).

Etymology

Outflank joins out- meaning 'outside' and flank meaning 'side', and in military use it means to move around the side of an enemy to gain an advantage in battle. So, to outflank an army is to go around its side to attack from a place the enemy does not expect.