OUT-OF-THE-WAY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does out-of-the-way mean? 

• OUT-OF-THE-WAY (adjective)
  The adjective OUT-OF-THE-WAY has 4 senses:

1. exceptional, unusual, or remarkable

2. improper or even offensive

3. dealt with; disposed of

4. remote from populous or much-traveled regions

  Familiarity information: OUT-OF-THE-WAY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OUT-OF-THE-WAY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Exceptional, unusual, or remarkable

Synonyms:

out-of-the-way; out of the ordinary; out of the way

Context example:

out-of-the-way information

Similar:

unusual (not usual or common or ordinary)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Improper or even offensive

Synonyms:

out-of-the-way; out of the way

Context example:

out-of-the-way remarks

Similar:

improper (not suitable or right or appropriate)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Dealt with; disposed of

Synonyms:

out-of-the-way; out of the way

Context example:

I'm so relieved that my midterm is out of the way

Similar:

finished (ended or brought to an end)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Remote from populous or much-traveled regions

Synonyms:

off the beaten track; out-of-the-way; out of the way

Context example:

they found a quiet out-of-the-way resort

Similar:

far (located at a great distance in time or space or degree)

 Context examples 

I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Who were these German people, and what were they doing living in this strange, out-of-the-way place?

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way place, had the power to aid in my discovery.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have contracted an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London—a disease, too, of which I had made such a very special study.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was so concerned, I recollect, even for the honour of Yarmouth, that when Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, I was highly pleased.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that—that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names, said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It's a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He stayed there a week, walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the November night and revisiting the out-of-the-way places to which they had driven in her white car.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)