Is it something like "far away"? Unfortunately I don't have the context but it would be nice to have some examples of how this word is used. Is it conversational?

closed as off-topic by Lambie, Eddie Kal, Nathan Tuggy, James K, user3169 Oct 15 '18 at 5:00




See the following notes for the meaning and usage:

Afield means at a far distance. When you go far afield, you travel a very long way.

If your job takes you halfway around the world, you can say that you work far afield, and if you and your siblings live on different continents, your family is spread far afield. You'll almost always see the word "far" before afield, since it describes long distances.

The word was originally a contraction of the Middle English in felde, from the Old English on felda, "in the field."


  • 2
    +1 Actually more than twice as common with the comparative further afield, at least in British English. (222 examples of further afield in British National Corpus, compared to only 101 for far afield.) – Araucaria Oct 14 '18 at 20:28

It's analogous to asea, which means "out to sea, out on the ocean far from land". Afield literally means out in the fields somewhere, not close to a dwelling.

afield can be used figuratively to mean "not close" to something abstract, not physical, such as the proper understanding of something.

He attributes the rise in global temperatures to an increase in the temperature at the planet's core, but most scientists believe he is very far afield.
