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.