▪ I. outcome, n.
(ˈaʊtkʌm)
[out- 7.]
† 1. The act or fact of coming out. Obs.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 80 Wiðuten hope of vtcume. 1375 Barbour Bruce iv. 361 And we sall neir enbuschit be, Quhar we thair out-cummyng [MS. E. outecome] may se. c 1500 Lancelot 592 Two knichtis..waiting his outcome. |
b. The time of the year when the days begin to lengthen (Jam.). Sc.
| 1706 Mare of Collingtoun in Watson Coll. Sc. Poems i. 43, I pray you, Duncan, thole me here, Until the out⁓cum of the Year. 1715 Wodrow Corr. (1843) II. 87 They talk that Mar..designs to quarter in Perth this season till the outcome of the year. |
2. That which comes out of or results from something; visible or practical result, effect, or product. (orig. Sc.: app. made Eng. by Carlyle.)
| 1788 R. Galloway Poems 13 And for the outcome o' the story, Just trust it to your ni'bour tory. 1808–18 Jamieson, Outcome, Termination..Increase, product. 1832 Carlyle Misc. Boswell's Johnson (1857) III. 59 We do the man's intellectual endowment great wrong, if we measure it by its mere logical outcome. 1848 Kingsley Saint's Trag. iii. iii. 138 Scan results and outcomes. 1857 Ruskin Pol. Econ. Art Addenda Note 8 Nothing more than the natural growth and outcome from the little dishonesty of the little buyers and sellers. 1865 Sat. Rev. 19 Aug. 227/1 He is, as the modern phrase has it, the outcome of these fine fictional theories. 1874 Sully Sensat. & Intuit. 76 Readiness to act [is] the sure outcome and test of belief. |
3. An outlet.
| 1885 W. D. Howells Silas Lapham (1891) II. 185 There ain't going to be the out-come for the paint in the foreign markets that we expected. 1894 H. Nisbet Bush Girl's Rom. 46 There were lots of other outcomes for her heroic efforts without her going to war for the sake of her country. |
Add: [2.] b. spec. in Med. and Psychology, the result or effect of treatment. Freq. used attrib., esp. in outcome study, with reference to the assessment of a particular treatment by studying its outcome in a range of cases.
| 1926 Rep. Public Health & Med. Subjects (Min. of Health) xxxiii. 2 On the average, ‘cure’ in the sense we associate with the usual outcome of a successful operation for strangulated hernia is not the outcome of the most enlightened treatment of pulmonary consumption. 1941 Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry XCVIII. 438/2 The usual medical criteria regarding outcome of treatment are employed—apparently cured, much improved, improved and unchanged or worse. 1953 Seeman & Raskin in O. H. Mowrer Psychotherapy Theory & Res. ix. 228 The outcome studies provide measures of behavioral modification and information about individual differences in such modification. 1959 Parloff & Rubinstein Res. in Psychotherapy 277/1 The tenor of the discussion strongly suggested that ‘outcome’ research was generally scorned as being ‘applied’. 1967 Jrnl. Consulting Psychol. XXXI. 109/2 It is precisely through outcome studies with concurrent measurement or manipulation of variables whose influence is unknown that important variables are likely to be identified. 1981 B. A. Farrell Standing of Psychoanal. ix. 180 Smith and Glass examined a very large number of outcome studies of various types of therapy. |
▪ II. † ˈoutcome, ppl. a. Obs.
In 1 {uacu}tancumen, 5 out(e)-comen.
[In OE. f. {uacu}tan from without + cumen, pa. pple., come.]
Come from without, i.e. from another country or place; foreign.
| c 893 K. ælfred Oros. v. ii. §5 Þæt þær nan utancymen mon cuman ne dorste. a 1023 Wulfstan Hom. xv. (1883) 91 ælþeodige men and utancumene swyðe us swencað. c 1425 Eng. Conq. Irel. 18 For out-comen men that he lade with hym. Ibid., The owt-comen folk þat was thus in-to the land I-come. 1469 Waterf. Arch. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 307 No oute commes man nor strangere. |
So ˈoutˌcomer, † (a) a stranger; one coming from outside. Obs. (b) One coming out from a place.
| 1607 in Hist. Wakefield Gram. Sch. (1892) 70 By any scholler or outcommer. 1880 L. Wallace Ben-Hur 423 ‘What is going on?’ one of the Galileans asked an outcomer. |