External means on or from the outside. An external wall, external factors, for external use only.
On medicine, for external use only means on the skin and not swallowed. In an organisation an external candidate comes from outside it, and an external examiner checks a university's marking so that nobody grades their own work unwatched.
1adjectiveexternalOn or from the outside.
“The external hard drive holds all our family photos.”
external is a quality of position.
Medieval Latin externus means outward, from exter, on the outside, from ex, out of.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁éǵʰs
Medieval Latin
externus — outward, external
English, today
external
Built from
From Late Middle English -, from Medieval Latin externus (“outward, external”), from exter/exterus (“on the outside, outward”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA