knout

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word knout. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word knout, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say knout in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word knout you have here. The definition of the word knout will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofknout, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Etymology

Via French knout from Russian кнут (knut), from Old East Slavic кнутъ (knutŭ), from Old Norse knútr (“knot in a cord”). Doublet of knot, node, and nodus.

Pronunciation

Noun

knout (plural knouts)

  1. A leather scourge (multi-tail whip), in the severe version known as 'great knout' with metal weights on each tongue, notoriously used in imperial Russia.
    • 1832 October 27, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Derwent Coleridge, “Tales out of School. A Dropt Letter from a Lady.”, in The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, . In Two Volumes, 4th edition, volume II, London: E Moxon, Son & Co., , published 1874, →OCLC, page 217:
      In Moscow, a Court carbonadoes / His ignorant serfs with the knout; / […] / But Eton has crueller terrors / Than these,—in the Windsor Express.
    • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair:
      Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.
    • 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:
      Spray and then slogging knouts of water hit the windows or lights like snarling disaffected at a mansion of the rich and frivolous.
    • 2005, James Meek, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, published 2006, page 193:
      The lieutenant gave him twenty strokes of the knout and stuck him in a cage for a few days till the snow was ankle deep.

Hypernyms

Translations

Verb

knout (third-person singular simple present knouts, present participle knouting, simple past and past participle knouted)

  1. To flog or beat with a knout.
    • 1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:
      Different, isn’t it? It’s called kava, by the way. The Fijians make it by knouting some root or other.

Synonyms

Anagrams

French

Etymology

From Russian кнут (knut), from Old East Slavic кнутъ (knutŭ), from Old Norse knútr (“knot”). Doublet of nœud.

Pronunciation

Noun

knout m (plural knouts)

  1. knout, scourge
  2. a flogging administered with such a multiple whip; a condemnation to suffer it

Descendants

  • → English: knout

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia