Outdraw
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To extract or draw out.
- 2 draw a gun faster, or best someone in a gunfight wordnet
- 3 To remove a gun from its holster, and fire it, faster than another.
"Well maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love, was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."
- 4 To attract a larger crowd than.
- 5 To draw better than; to surpass in creating drawn artworks.
"Certainly he could outdraw just about anybody, and he knew how to tell a story, seamlessly weaving words and pictures together."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Well maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love, was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."
Etymology
From Middle English outdrauen, outdrawen, from Old English ūtdragan, from Proto-Germanic *ūtdraganą. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uutdreege, West Frisian útdrage (“to carry out”), Dutch uitdragen (“to carry out”), German austragen (“to deal with; deliver”), Icelandic útdraga (“to extract; draw out”). By surface analysis, out- + draw.
Related phrases
More for "outdraw"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.