Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word bout. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word bout, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say bout in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word bout you have here. The definition of the word bout will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofbout, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
A period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant.
a bout of drought.
1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Part, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 105:
The "King" responded well to this treatment and would have maintained 60 m.p.h. up the steepest part had it not been for a brief bout of slipping, which was quickly corrected by Driver Bailes ("Autumn leaves", he remarked laconically).
2001, Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp, page 14:
Jackson won lasting fame for his treatment of an alcoholic's painful disintegration in his first novel, The Lost Weekend, in which he suggested that the root of his protagonist's bouts with the bottle could be found in his repressed homosexuality.
1809, “A Letter to Sir John Sinclair containing a Statement of the System under which a considerable Farm is profitably managed in Hertfordshire. Given at the request of the Board. By Thomas Greg, Esq.”, in The Farmer's Magazine, page 395:
The outside bout of each land is ploughed two inches deeper, and from thence the water runs into cross furrows, which are dug with a spade […] I have an instrument of great power, called a scarifier, for this purpose. It is drawn by four horses, and completely prepares the land for the seed at each bout.
1922, “An Ingenious One-Way Agrimotor”, in The Commercial Motor, volume 34, Temple Press, page 32:
It is in this manner that the ploughs are reversed at the termination of each bout of the field.
1976, Claude Culpin, Farm Machinery, page 60:
The last two rounds must be ploughed shallower, and on the last bout the strip left should be one furrow width for a two-furrow plough, two for a three-furrow, and so on.