Talk:out the window

out the window
Is this really a noun, as the definition suggests? If so, is it actually "out of the window" ("out" being a slangy way of saying "out of")? A cursory glance at the first 10 Google hits out of 13,500 for "an out the window" gives this as an attributive noun phrase only, mostly (correctly) written as "out-the-window".

If it is not a noun, then I think this is really "go out of the window" and should be defined as "(of an opportunity) to be squandered" or something like that. &mdash; Paul G 16:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's (what we call) an adverb (as in "go out the window") and perhaps also an adjective ("another opportunity out the window!" —or is that just an elision of "(has) gone"? See ). Same for down the drain, which we currently list as a preposition and which is tagged with .—msh210 ℠ 17:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I often heard it when I was much younger. I heard it as both adjective (predicate) and adverb. In meaning it was mostly as MSH describes. "That [opportunity] is out the window" or "They had a chance to win the pennant, but now that's out the window" are examples. I can't quite get an attributive use scenario though. I'm not sure how many verbs besides "go" that it can modify as an adverb with the "idiomatic" meaning, which is just a figurative extension of the literal meaning. DCDuring TALK 18:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Still in relatively recent use. Lyrics from a 2001 Sugar Ray song: "All the things that we used to know have gone out the window." --EncycloPetey 21:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * cited IMHO. Please inspect. DCDuring TALK 03:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The noun sense tagged is not cited, of course, but has been replaced. Detagging; thanks for citing. Shouldn't we have [[go out the window]] hard-redirect? (It's now a full entry.) &#x200b;— msh210 ℠ 18:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)