outside, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

outside adj.

[i.e. outside the primary relationships or the (fig.) house]

1. (US black, illegitimate, extra-marital; thus W.I.) outside daughter/son, outside kid/child, an illegitimate child; outside man, a woman’s lover; outside woman, a man’s lover.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) IV 795: French women don’t see much harm in an outside fuck or so.
1923		Lovie Austin ‘Barrel House Blues’ 🎵 Papa likes his bourbon, mama likes her gin / Papa likes his outside women, mama likes outside men.
1939		A. Durie One Jamaica Gal 12: Her grandfather, father, and husband had all produced ‘outside’ families with comely brown paramours.
1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 35: Mabe some of us is ‘outside’ children, because I don’t know for sure that Mama was really married to Jelly’s daddy or to mine.
1941		Brownie McGhee ‘I’m a Black Woman’s Man’ 🎵 I’m crazy ’bout my whiskey, crazy ’bout my gin But you know a yellow woman is crazy ’bout outside men.
1942		L. Bennett ‘Jamaica Patoah’ in Jam. Dialect Poems 121: Leah fadah outside darter son / Wey dem call knock-knee Joe.
1948		Dan Burley ‘Back Door Stuff’ 27 Nov. [synd. col.] His ‘quiet little wife’ has a list, courtesy of the gumshoe Dept., [...] of all the outside women he’s chasing.
1966		(ref. to 1940s) L. Bennett Jamaica Labrish 223: outside daughter, son, child. illegitimate daughter, son, child of a married person.
1972		The Temptations ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’ 🎵 Papa had three outside children and another wife.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso xvi: outside – illegitimate.
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 135: Sex the least likely [i.e. motivation for crime] , because they've got the outside stuff going.
1990		C. Angier Jean Rhys (1992) 357: Her ‘outside’ relations, Owen’s children, came to see her.
1998		B. Gifford Sinaloa Story 171: What do you suppose Heaven be up to with that outside man [...] I mean, she dug Hernando.
1999		Indep. Rev. 13 Aug. 13: The absent father [...] screwed around, fathered ‘outside’ children.
2002		R. Gordon Can’t Be Satisfied 140: ‘They got along okay but it was a lot of friction because of outside women’.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 177: ‘He had a bunch of outside children’.

2. (US black) of someone considered ‘outside’ one’s friends or gang.

1940

Davis & Dollard Children of Bondage 37: [of beating] She put River Side boys ‘on the spot’ by leading them into traps and whistling for her gang of boys [...] who broke street lights so that they could beat up ‘outside’ boys.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

outside girl (n.)

a street prostitute.

1935

W. Smith Bessie Cotter 48: Blanche is only a outside girl.

outside job (n.) [job n.² (1a)]

a crime committed in a house etc. by a person not connected or associated with the household or building concerned.

1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 11: The prison authorities announced that it was an ‘outside’ job.
2000		Guardian 14 Sept. 🌐 I am glad that all staff and officials have been cleared by the inquiry of using the information. I am very concerned about the lack of security and will be conducting an urgent review. It could have been an outside job.

outside money (n.)

(US) money earned outside one’s primary/official job.

1953

F. Brown Madball (2019) 174: Trixie had saved her money. Her outside money [...] every dollar she could make on the side, after hours, selling what all men wanted.

outside pal (n.) (also outside partner) [pal n. (1)]

(UK Und.) a lookout for a gang of thieves.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Sept. n.p.: Jim Colbert, their outside partner, furnished them with the ‘queer’ to play with a greenhorn.

outside plant (n.) [plant n. (1)]

(UK Und.) a place where a criminal receiver keeps his stock.

1859

Matsell Vocabulum.

outside work (n.)

(US und.) criminal work undertaken for others than the gang to whom one belongs.

2021

S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 113: ‘‘They definitely have taken some outside work [...] they done a fair bit for Chuly’.