Dictionary

outnumber en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /aʊtˈnʌmbə(ɹ)/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úd Proto-Germanic *ūt Proto-Germanic *ūt- Old English ūt- Middle English ut- English out- Latin numerus Anglo-Norman noumbrebor. Middle English nombre English number English outnumber From out- + number.

Meanings

1. (stative, transitive) To be more in number than somebody or something.
   • There are 105 D.B. Type "23" engines and they were intended to replace the famous Prussian "P8" class 4-6-0s (Type "38"), but dieselisation prevented further construction and they are greatly outnumbered by the thousand or so "P8s" which are still in service and which can be seen on a great variety of duties. 1960 September 14, P. Ransome-Wallis, “Modern motive power of the German Federal Railways: Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, page 553:
   • The striking aspect of clinicide is the scale of suspicious deaths with which it is associated, which outnumbers proven murders by an order of magnitude (in [Harold] Shipman's case, a factor of (240-15)#47;15#61;15), a figure that only hints at the enormous interpersonal disruption and family grief which follows in its wake. 2013, Brian Hurwitz, “Healthcare Serial Killings: Was the Case of Dr Harold Shipman Unthinkable?”, in Danielle Griffiths, Andrew Sanders, editors, Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law (Cambridge Bioethics and Law), volumes 2 (Medicine, Crime and Society), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 19:
   • Vastly outnumbering the Jews, Palestinian Arabs during the period after the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate always refused anything that would compromise their dominance. 1999 January 10, Edward Said, “The One-State Solution”, in The New York Times Magazine, archived from the original on 25 Apr 2022:
   • Women outnumbered men by two to one.
   • When reports surfaced early this summer that our contractors in Iraq (180,000, of whom some 48,000 are believed to be security personnel) now outnumber our postsurge troop strength, we yawned. 2007 October 14, Frank Rich, “The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2022:
   • The group assembled in Romare Bearden Park shortly after 6 p.m., just barely outnumbering a dozen city police officers stationed in clusters around the area’s edge. The crowd grew to more than 50 people within the hour, many draped in keffiyehs and hoisting Palestinian flags high above their heads. 2025 June 27, Lila Hempel-Edgers, Damenica Ellis, “Protesters gathered in uptown Charlotte to oppose Trump bombing of Iran sites”, in The Charlotte Observer, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2026, Politics & Government:

Forms

Translations (21)

cs přečíslit (be more in number) · cmn 超過 /超过 (be more in number) · bg превъзхождам числено (be more in number) · nl in de meerderheid zijn (be more in number) · es ser más que (be more in number) · de in der Überzahl/Mehrzahl sein (be more in number) · ru превосходи́ть численностью (be more in number) · hu felülmúl (be more in number) · fr être en supériorité numérique (be more in number) · pl przewaga liczebna (be more in number) · es superar en número a (be more in number) · pt disparidade (be more in number) · ru превосходи́ть численно (be more in number) · es superar numéricamente a (be more in number) · hu meghalad (be more in number) · ru превосходи́ть количеством (be more in number) · de zahlenmäßig überlegen sein (be more in number) · pt exceder em número (be more in number) · ru численно превыша́ть (be more in number) · az sayca üstün olmaq (be more in number) · pl but see liczny (be more in number)