the outside world
- noun
- After spending years in seclusion, I was eager to explore the outside world once more.
- contact with the outside world
- connect to the outside world
- open up to the outside world
There is no light, but the outside world exists around it.
- There is no light, but the outside world exists around it.
- And so they're not prepared to work in the outside world and to adapt.
- Oh, birthdays, vacations, seeing the outside world, friendships.
- We're reading what the outside world is telling us.
- It didn't close itself off to the outside world, either.
- What needs to happen is the outside world needs to start closing in on your hero.
- So there's less entry from the outside world into the bladder, which causes infections and so.
- And I didn't care what the outside world said.
- Action which makes what it is that you are visible to the outside world.
- I've forgotten time and I've forgotten the existence of the outside world.
Examples
-
You have no contact with the outside world.
-
Most of these private collections were unknown to the outside world.
Academic text (2008) -
Otherwise I return back to the outside world that wants to know.
-
We're reading what the outside world is telling us.
-
What did you miss most about the outside world when being locked up?
-
May I say, that any breath of fresh air from the outside world, I think is welcome to us all.
-
I feel like a lot of us, when receiving judgement from the outside world, judge ourselves.
-
Due to contacts with the outside world, a limited but impressive free society is coming into being.
Academic text (1992) -
For Lori, food did not seem half so important as that link with the outside world.
Fiction book (1991) -
The outside world seems strange and mundane.
Synonyms
From people or things not in a group
How Far
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase's meaning is directly compositional: 'outside' (external) modifies 'world' (the whole human environment) to denote the external world beyond one's immediate surroundings; the definite article is semantically neutral here. This NP pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows everyday compositional semantics, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
The outside world comes from the simple image of being inside a house or village and looking out at the larger world beyond, with other people, news and places. That's why the phrase means 'the world beyond your own place'.