out of doors

• out-of-doors, (obsolete) out of door

out of doors

1. Dated form of outdoors: not inside any building.

   You are allowed to smoke out of doors.

   The cat was out of doors, seemingly enjoying the sun.

   • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 80–81:

     [U]pon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough; there were half hours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year, that she had often great enjoyment out of doors.

   • 1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence:

     All things that love the sun are out of doors; / The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

   • 1920, [Elizabeth von Arnim], In the Mountains, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, page 180:

     I said I would do anything—dig, weed, collect slugs, anything at all, but he must let me work. Work with my hands out of doors was the only thing I felt I could bear to-day. It wasn't the first time, I reflected, that peace has been found among cabbages.