out-of-service

See also: out of service

English

Alternative forms

• out of service

Adjective

out-of-service (not comparable)

1. Not working, not functioning, broken; currently unavailable.

   Synonyms: out of commission, out-of-order; see also Thesaurus:out of order

   • 2005 October 17, “Talk of the Town: Elevator Hack”, in The New Yorker:

     No one much likes it when something—an empty cab, an out-of-service subway train, summer—goes by without stopping.

Usage notes

• Used especially for telephone numbers and methods of public transportation, such as elevators, buses, or taxis.
• The hyphenated spelling out-of-service is used when this adjective immediately precedes the noun it modifies; predicatively, the open form applies (out of service).

Antonyms

• in service