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farm out

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: farmout

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From farm +‎ out.

Verb

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farm out (third-person singular simple present farms out, present participle farming out, simple past and past participle farmed out)

  1. (transitive, idiomatic, business) To subcontract (a task, responsibility, etc.) to another; to outsource.
    • 1911, Upton Sinclair, The Machine, act II:
      These companies are simply paper companies . . . they farm out the contracts to the real builders.
    • 1977 December 31, Lisa Nussbaum, “Jacqui Mac: Bringing Her Dreams Together”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 26, page 10:
      The summer of 1976 founnd Jacqui at the Pied Piper in Provincetown doing disco seven nights a week. Come fall, Jacqui farmed out her talents to four separate gay bars — three in Boston and one in Tyngsboro, Mass.
    • 2009 January 5, Mark Thompson, “Another Gitmo Grows in Afghanistan”, in Time:
      The U.S. military had hoped to farm out the Bagram detainees to prisons run by Afghanistan and other nations.
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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From farm (to cleanse, clean) +‎ out.

Verb

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farm out (third-person singular simple present farms out, present participle farming out, simple past and past participle farmed out)

  1. (Northern England) To clear or clean out; empty out.
    Farm out the stable and pigsty.

Anagrams

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