Other forms: outrages, outraged, outrageous
Outrage is anger at something that should not have been allowed to happen. Not irritation — the loud, public, how-was-this-permitted kind.
It is usually collective: public outrage, a wave of outrage, the story caused outrage. One person on their own is more likely to be furious than outraged. It is also a countable noun for the act itself — the bombing was an outrage — and the adjective outrageous has drifted away from the parent word into meaning shocking, or simply enormous: an outrageous price, an outrageous hat.
1nounoutrageGreat public anger at something felt to be wrong.~75%
“The decision caused outrage in every paper in the country.”
synonyms: indignation, fury
2nounactAn act so wrong it causes that anger.~12%
“Closing the only hospital was an outrage.”
3verbfeelTo make somebody feel that anger.~13%
“The verdict outraged the whole town.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 91 sentences found in the wild and placed 61 of them on a sense (30 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
out-RAGE → RAGE let OUT
The lid comes off and the rage comes out — and the whole street hears about it.
hooks ontorage
From Old French outrage, meaning excess — built on the idea of going beyond, the way ultra does. An outrage is something that has gone past the line.
Latin
ultrā — beyond
Vulgar Latin
*ultrāticum
Old French
outrage
Middle English
outrage
English, today
outrage
Built from
From Middle English outrage, from Old French outrage, oultrage (“excess”), from Vulgar Latin ultrāticum ("a going beyond"), derived from Latin ultrā (“beyond”). Later reanalysed as out- + rage, whence the contemporary pronunciation, though neither of these are etymologically related. The verb is from Middle English outragen, from Old French oultragier.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA