1
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Phrase(s): farm someone out
1. [for someone in control] to send someone to work for someone else. • I have farmed my electrician out for a week, so your work will have to wait. • We farmed out the office staff. 2. to send a child away to be cared for by someone; to send a child to boarding school. • We farmed the kids out to my sister for the summer. • We farmed out the kids., Phrase(s): farm something out
1. to deplete the fertility of land by farming too intensely. • They farmed their land out through careless land management. • They farmed out their land. 2. to send work to someone to be done away from one’s normal place of business; to subcontract work. • We farmed the assembly work out. • We always farm out the actual final assembly of the finished units.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
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Assign something to an outsider; subcontract something. For example, The contractor was so busy he had to farm out two jobs to a colleague, or When their mother was hospitalized, the children had to be farmed out to the nearest relatives. This term originally referred to letting or leasing land. Today it usually refers to subcontracting work or the care of a dependent to another. In baseball it means "to assign a player to a lesser (farm) league," as opposed to a BIG LEAGUE. [Mid-1600s]
American Heritage Idioms