Outspan

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The place where one releases oxen from a harness. South-Africa

    "At the outspan or on the road or footpath he shouldered them aside as one walks through standing corn, not aggressively, but with the superb indifference of right and habit unquestioned."

  2. 2
    An area on a farm kept available for travellers to rest and refresh their animals.
Verb
  1. 1
    To release oxen from a harness. South-Africa, transitive

    "We had outspanned on in a flat covered with close grass about two feet high…The wagons, four in number, were drawn up off the road two abreast."

  2. 2
    remove the yoke or harness from wordnet

Antonyms

All antonyms
inspan

Example

More examples

"We had outspanned on in a flat covered with close grass about two feet high…The wagons, four in number, were drawn up off the road two abreast."

Etymology

From out + span. Compare Afrikaans uitspan.

More for "outspan"

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