Outmate
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A former inmate. rare
"It is enough to make a monkey laugh and angels weep to see sixteen to twenty millions of folks quarreling, fussing, cheering, hooting and acting generally like outmates of a lunatic asylum every time these two gangs of political bunko-steerers run you up against their old game—which a child ought to see through—and make you think you are electing men of your choice, when all that you do, or can do, is to elect one of two sets of candidates of their choice, because you are bound to elect candidates hand-picked by these confidence operators, no matter how you vote."
- 1 To mate with an individual who is not part of one's immediate social group.
- 2 To surpass in finding mates; to outbreed. transitive
- 3 To outmatch. obsolete, transitive
Example
More examples"It is enough to make a monkey laugh and angels weep to see sixteen to twenty millions of folks quarreling, fussing, cheering, hooting and acting generally like outmates of a lunatic asylum every time these two gangs of political bunko-steerers run you up against their old game—which a child ought to see through—and make you think you are electing men of your choice, when all that you do, or can do, is to elect one of two sets of candidates of their choice, because you are bound to elect candidates hand-picked by these confidence operators, no matter how you vote."
Etymology
From out- + mate.
From out- + -mate, by analogy with inmate.
More for "outmate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.