farm out

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farm out (third-person singular simple present farms out, present participle farming out, simple past and past participle farmed out)

1. (transitive, idiomatic, business) To subcontract (a task, responsibility, etc.) to another; to outsource.
   • 1911, Upton Sinclair, The Machine, act II:

     These companies are simply paper companies . . . they farm out the contracts to the real builders.

   • 1977 December 31, Lisa Nussbaum, “Jacqui Mac: Bringing Her Dreams Together”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 26, page 10:

     The summer of 1976 founnd Jacqui at the Pied Piper in Provincetown doing disco seven nights a week. Come fall, Jacqui farmed out her talents to four separate gay bars — three in Boston and one in Tyngsboro, Mass.

   • 2009 January 5, Mark Thompson, “Another Gitmo Grows in Afghanistan”, in Time:

     The U.S. military had hoped to farm out the Bagram detainees to prisons run by Afghanistan and other nations.

• farmout (noun)

• foumart