out of the way

English

Alternative forms

• out-of-the-way

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Prepositional phrase

out of the way

1. Remote or secluded.

   I know this out-of-the-way hotel where we could stay.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 8:

     It was from no choice of my own that I was brought up in an out-of-the-way pallazzo, with nothing to do but to fall in love.

   • 2022 December 14, Christian Wolmar, “No Marston Vale line trains... and no one in charge seems to 'give a damn'”, in RAIL, number 972, page 46:

     Passenger numbers had been rising sharply. But the replacement of the services by buses, which take far longer because of the number of stations in out-of-the-way villages on the route, will ensure they plummet again.

2. Unusual or out of the ordinary.
3. Unusually or excessively.
   • 1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 14, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 176:

     'I'm not an out of the way nervous woman.'

4. Improper or offensive.
5. (idiomatic) Not obstructing or hindering; not in the way.

   Please move your bike out of the way.

   • 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

     In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.

   • 2023 December 27, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the way to Weymouth”, in RAIL, number 999, page 55:

     The railway ran through the resort's narrow streets up to Weymouth Quay station, with thoughtlessly parked vehicles sometimes having to be bumped out of the way.

6. (idiomatic) Taken care of.

   Now that the main problems are out of the way, we can start working on the details.

Synonyms

• See: Thesaurus:remote place

Translations

remote, secluded — see remote,‎ secluded

out of the ordinary — see out of the ordinary

not in the way

German: aus dem Weg Italian: dal passaggio Romanian: la o parte