ENGLISH
REFERENCE

outage

n. countable
B2 Upper Intermediate US //ˈaʊtədʒ// UK //ˈaʊtɪdʒ// out·age

n. a period of time when a service is not working. This usually refers to things like electricity, the internet, or water.

n. a period during which a power supply or other public service is unavailable. Refers to a temporary suspension of utility or network operations.


SIMPLE

The storm caused a major power outage in our neighborhood.

CONTEXTUAL

The bank apologized for the website outage that prevented customers from accessing their accounts all morning.

COMPLEX

Engineers worked through the night to identify the software bug responsible for the global server outage that disrupted international communications for several hours.

Origin

From out + -age, on the model of shortage.

Usage

Often paired with descriptive nouns like 'power', 'internet', or 'network'.

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