Outlying

adj, noun

adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A region relatively remote from a central location.

    "The other areas and the outlyings will have to come in at a later date, although the council wrestles with that periodically. But the amount of money involved would be substantial."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Relatively remote from some central location.

    "The more outlying villages were never visited by their member of parliament."

  2. 2
    Located outside of some boundary or limit.

    "When the map was redrawn after the war, our cousin found herself living in outlying territory."

Adjective
  1. 1
    relatively far from a center or middle wordnet

Example

More examples

"A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us."

Etymology

From outlie (Etymology 2) + -ing.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.