extern

A person affiliated with an institution in a lesser capacity, for example, as a non-resident or as a part-time affiliate.

Adjective

  1. External; outward; not inherent
    • Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, / But seeming so, for my particular end, / For when my outward action doth demonstrate / The native act and figure of my heart / In complement extern, 'tis not long after /...
    • For if the ſoul of man vvere emancipated by virtue, it vvould not need any regulation or monition, beſides that of its invvard Tribunal; vvhich becauſe ſin does uſurp upon, has ſome relief from thoſe extern adjuments. -...

Origin

From Middle French externe or its etymon Latin externus.

Derived

externment

Noun Entry 2

  1. A person affiliated with an institution in a lesser capacity, for example, as a non-resident or as a part-time affiliate.

    1. A day-scholar.

  2. Outward form or part; exterior.

Forms

externs

Noun computing, engineering

  1. In the C and C++ programming languages, a variable that can be separately declared in many places, all of them referring to the same variable.
    • Finally, get rid of the two function declarations and two externs that we added at the top of TEFIL.CPP so that we could support file_open(). - 1995, Martin L. Rinehart, Learn C++ Today!, page 552:
    • This is probably the big thing with C++, the more you can avoid global concepts and nasty externs the better, an object/class should be totally self-contained. - 2018, Brian Beuken, The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game...

Origin

Short for external; used as a keyword in these programming languages.

Forms

externs