Idiom
outside job
Meaning
A crime or other illicit action committed by an individual not connected or associated with the premises or organization in which it took place.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The police believe the robbery was an outside job.”
“Security footage showed a stranger entering the building, confirming that the theft was an outside job.”
“The investigators concluded that the sophisticated breach of the firm's digital vault was undoubtedly an outside job, given the lack of internal access logs.”
Examples
simple
“The police believe the robbery was an outside job.”
contextual
“Security footage showed a stranger entering the building, confirming that the theft was an outside job.”
complex
“The investigators concluded that the sophisticated breach of the firm's digital vault was undoubtedly an outside job, given the lack of internal access logs.”
Origin
From *outside* + *job*, formed by analogy with the pre-existing term *inside job*.
Key words
Related idioms
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