Outgroup
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The group of people who do not belong to one's own social group.
"This dissertation promises to correct for this theoretical deficit by formulating, elaborating, and ultimately testing a group-based moral emotions account in which white Americans’ moral appraisals of and attitudes towards racial/ethnic outgroups are considerably influenced by those of and towards fellow whites. […] On the basis of the insights from intergroup emotions theory, Chapter 3 derives and presents a series of preliminary hypotheses that are designed to test the relative importance of white shame and guilt for white Americans’ support for equity-oriented pro-black policies (e.g. affirmative action, financial reparations) and expressions of outgroup favoritism."
- 2 In cladistics, all the taxa included in a study that do not belong to the ingroup that is of immediate interest.
"A cladistic analysis of 45 ingroup and two outgroup taxa was performed on the basis of 134 characters."
- 1 To form an outgroup.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Tom is a member of the outgroup."
Etymology
From out- + group.
More for "outgroup"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.