out of the ordinary

1. 1.

   exceptionally or unusually good

   “the food here is out of this world”

   Synonymsout of this world

   Similarsuperior
2. 2.

   exceptional, unusual, or remarkable

   “out-of-the-way information”

   Synonymsout-of-the-wayout of the way

   Similarunusual

Questions about out of the ordinary

What does out of the ordinary mean?

out of the ordinary means "exceptionally or unusually good". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for out of the ordinary?

Close synonyms include out of this world, out-of-the-way, out of the way. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is out of the ordinary a common word?

out of the ordinary is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.