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outdated

UK/aʊtˈdeɪtɪd/US/aʊtˈdeɪtɪd/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,097 of 15,258neutral

Outdated means belonging to a time that has passed. Still there, still working perhaps, but overtaken.

It suits equipment, rules and attitudes equally: outdated software, an outdated law, outdated views about who does the washing up. There is always a mild criticism in it, since calling something outdated says it should have been replaced by now. Out of date does the same job in three words and is commoner in speech, though it also covers food past its date, which outdated does not. Obsolete is the stronger word, meaning no longer used at all.

Definitions of outdated

  1. 1adjectiveoutdatedNo longer current or useful; belonging to an earlier time.B2+

    “The manual was hopelessly outdated.”

Where it comes from

From outdate + ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Time & Calendar, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 9 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

outdated in the wild

  • N. or NN) is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany.

    Normalnull

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.