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Outer vs Surface - What's the difference?

outer | surface | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between outer and surface

is that outer is an outer part while surface is the overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

As an adjective outer

is outside; external.

As a verb surface is

to provide something with a surface.

outer

English

Etymology 1

Comparative of out by analogy with inner.

Adjective

  • Outside; external.
  • Farther from the centre of the inside.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=14 citation , passage=Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime. Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the house.}}
    Antonyms
    * inner

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An outer part.
  • *
  • The part of a target which is beyond the circles surrounding the bullseye.
  • A shot which strikes the outer of a target.
  • (wholesale trade) the smallest single unit normally sold to retailers, usually equal to one retail display box.
  • We ordered two cartons with twelve outers in each.

    Derived terms

    * outer space * outerness

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who admits to something publicly.
  • Someone who outs another.
  • One who puts out, ousts, or expels.
  • An ouster; dispossession.
  • Anagrams

    * ----

    surface

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.