out

   1. available for marriage

   A shortened form of out in society, when girls approaching marriageable age had their season in which they met bachelors, among others. Despite the attraction of linking matrimony with the chase, I fear that we cannot call in aid the hunting jargon out, engaged on horseback chasing fox or deer:

    'Weren't you out last Saturday?' she asked... That's a nice cob you were on.' (Sassoon, 1928)

   2. overtly homosexual

   Having come out of the closet¹. Whence the verb, meaning publicly to expose another's homosexuality:

    Militant activists claim that they are now 'negotiating' with five other bishops (who, it is said, are being urged to admit to homosexuality or be 'outed'). (Sunday Telegraph, 12 March 1995)

   In this context an outing is not a Sunday school treat but such involuntary exposure:

    It is here that Outrage's tactics, particularly in threatened 'outings' of individual clergymen, are likely to cut sharpest, (ibid. — Outrage is a homosexual pressure group)

   3. obsolete involved in a duel

   The venue was generally in the open air:

    'And for the sake of practice you insulted six fencing masters in a week before your duel?' 'I had the privilege of being out seven times in as many days, sire,' I said. (A. C. Doyle, 1895)