Think of the pencil marks a family draws on a door frame. The child keeps rising; the marks stay exactly where they were. Outgrow can be pictured as growing past a line that once fitted you. The coat, the cot, the small garage, the old fear — none of them changed. You went past them. In one use the line belongs to the thing you left behind; in another, the line is simply another grower you moved ahead of.
可以想成門框上那幾道鉛筆記號。人每年往上長，記號留在原地。outgrow 的畫面就是那條線被超過了：外套、嬰兒床、後院的小車庫、小時候的害怕，這些都沒有變，是你走到它們前面去了。有時候那條線畫在被留下的東西上，有時候那條線就是另一個也在長的對手，你只是長得比較快。
From the word’s history
The source records outgrow simply as out- plus grow. That is the whole picture: growing out past something.
來源把 outgrow 記成 out- 加 grow 兩塊組成。字面就是「長到外面去」，這正好就是它今天的畫面：往上長，越過原本的那條線。
Wiktionary entry for outgrow, etymology_text supplied in this packet: "From out- + grow."
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。