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say it: ik-STUR-nuhl
external is an adjective and noun meaning "happening or arising or located outside or beyond some limits or especially surface". It carries 5 recorded senses.
coming from the outside
“extraneous light in the camera spoiled the photograph”
“relying upon an extraneous income”
“disdaining outside pressure groups”
from or between other countries
“external commerce”
“international trade”
“developing nations need outside help”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for external come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.