outsource

verb

out·​source ˈau̇t-ˌsȯrs 

outsourced; outsourcing; outsources

transitive + intransitive

: to procure (something, such as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) from outside sources and especially from foreign or nonunion suppliers : to contract for work, jobs, etc., to be done by outside or foreign workers

decided to outsource some back-office operations

Some services and aspects of production were outsourced to cut costs.

Firms outsource to capitalize on their strengths while minimizing business activities that are not core functions.

—John K. Borchardt

compare insource

Examples of outsource in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

First Bek looks at those tasks that companies already outsource to service providers, things like legal services, auditing, insurance brokerage, etc. —Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 21 Apr. 2026

The move underlines D’Amaro’s emphasis on streaming, but the company has moved out of international physical-media markets in recent years, killed its Disney Movie Club in 2024, and later that year announced a deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to outsource disc production and distribution. —Eric Vilas-Boas, Vulture, 20 Apr. 2026

If at first teachers worried about students using chatbots to write essays, now new agentic tools such as Claude Code are allowing students to outsource even more of their work to the machines. —Lila Shroff, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2026

That research also provides some experimental examination of when and why people are willing to outsource their critical thinking to AI, and how factors like time pressure and external incentives can affect that decision. —Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 3 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1979, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for outsource

• concourse
• divorce
• endorse
• enforce
• indorse
• midcourse
• perforce
• racecourse
• racehorse
• remorse
• seahorse
• workforce