1788, "that which results from something," originally Scottish, from the verbal phrase; see out (adv.) + come (v.). Popularized in English by Carlyle (c. 1830s). It was used in Middle English in sense of "an emergence, act or fact of coming out" (c. 1200), and the gerund, outcoming, was used as "an issue, a result." Old English had utancumen (n.) "stranger, foreigner."
