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The noun is derived from Middle Englishrout, route(“group of people associated with one another, company; entourage, retinue; army; group of soldiers; group of pirates; large number of people, crowd; throng; group of disreputable people, mob; riot; group of animals; group of objects; proper condition or manner”),[1] from Anglo-Normanroute, rute, Middle Frenchrote, route, Old Frenchrote, route, rute(“group of people, company; group of armed people; group of criminals; group of cattle”) (modern Frenchroute(obsolete)), from Latinrupta (compare Late Latinruta, rutta(“group of marauders; riot; unlawful assembly”)), the feminine of ruptus(“broken; burst, ruptured”), the perfectpassiveparticiple of rumpō(“to break, burst, rupture, tear; to force open; (figurative) to annul; to destroy; to interrupt”),[2] ultimately from Proto-Indo-European*Hrewp-(“to break; to tear (up)”). The English word is a doublet of route.
The verb is derived from Middle Englishrouten(“to assemble, congregate; of animals: to herd together; to regroup, make a stand against; to be riotous, to riot”),[3] from rout, route(noun); see above.[4]
A route of people there aſſembled were, / Of euery ſort and nation vnder skye, [...]
1691, [Anthony Wood], “Fasti Oxonienses”, in Athenæ Oxonienses. An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops who have had Their Education in the Most Ancient and Famous University of Oxford from the Fifteenth Year of King Henry the Seventh, Dom. 1500, to the End of the Year 1690., volume I (Extending to the 16th Year of King Charles I. Dom. 1640), London: Tho Bennet, →OCLC, column 744:
The Incorporations this year did moſtly conſiſt of Cantabrigians who had lately come to this University for preferment from the Viſitors, when the great rout of Royalliſts were by then made in this University.
Beſides the endleſſe routs of wretched thralles, / VVhich thether were aſſembled day by day, / From all the world after their wofull falles, / Through wicked pride, and waſted welthes decay.
When Gospel-Trumpeter surrounded, / With long-ear'd rout to Battel sounded, / And Pulpit, Drum Ecclesiastick, / Was beat with fist, instead of a stick:
lthough there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout.
For it was clearly in search of her that the rabble rout had come. The dancing nymphs hailed her with joyful giggles, the poodle sprang on her with dusty paws, and then turned a somersault in her honour, and from the driver's box came the twang of a guitar and the familiar wail of: Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we must part?
The Ducheſs or Marlborough had one of the grandeſt routs that has been given for ſome time, almoſt the whole of the firſt people of rank and faſhion in England being preſent. This being a new birth to conviviality in Marlborough Houſe, and the firſt rout for theſe ſeven laſt years, it was uncommonly crouded.
The envoys were not often compelled to forego the toilet for the desk, nor the beaux secretaires, to give up their lessons on the guitar for the drudgery of copying dispatches. A "protocol" would have scared the gentle state from its propriety; and the arrival of the Morning Post, once a week from London, with the account of routs in which they had not shared, and the anticipation of dinners and déjeûnés which they were never to enjoy, was the only pain which Diplomacy suffered to raise a ripple on the tranquil surface of its soul.
By a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements, he was pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends parties were given at that season; where he would be likely to meet Osborne's sisters; and, though he had that abhorrence of routs and evening parties which many sensible men, alas, entertain, he soon found one where the Miss Osbornes were to be present.
Whereupon the meaner ſort [of people] routed together, and ſuddenly aſſayling the Earle [i.e., Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland] in his Houſe, ſlew him, and diuers of his ſeruants.
From Thrace they fly, call'd to the dire Alarms / Of warring Phlegyans, and Emphyrian Arms; / Invok'd by both, relentleſs they diſpoſe / To theſe, glad Conqueſt, murd'rous Rout to thoſe.
His position had come to him—why? Perhaps because he was never ill… He had served three terms of three years out there… Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself.
It was only the outstanding Cech that stood between Arsenal and a second-half rout as Spurs simply swamped their opponents after the break with a formidable display of power, pace and sheer intensity.
(military, also figurative) The retreat of an enemy force, etc., in this manner; also (archaic,rare), the army, enemy force, etc., so retreating.
1609, Samuel Daniel, “The Fovrth Booke”, in The Civile Wares betweene the Howses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: Simon Watersonne, →OCLC, stanza 56, page 101:
hy Army preſently, / (As if they could not ſtand, when thou wert downe) / Diſperſt in rout, betooke them all to flie: [...]
2022 September 11, Andrew E. Kramer, Andrew Higgins, “Ukraine Routs Russian Forces in Northeast, Forcing a Retreat”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
And the authorities in Moscow presented the rout in the northeast as a planned “regrouping.”
2024 December 4, “Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is in mortal danger”, in The Economist, →ISSN:
Small contingents of Russian troops across the country have tried to train the Syrian army into a more professional force (the rout in Aleppo suggests those efforts have gone poorly).
Quotations
2021 August 11, Thomas Happ, Axiom Verge 2, scene: clay tablet "Heretic's Granddaughter":
Sixty revered sages gave their lives. In return we have ten weapons of godlike power. The King is pleased and the Udug put to rout, at least for the time being.
Translations
act of completely defeating an army, etc., causing it to retreat in a disorganized manner; convincing defeat
hat Party of the King's Horſe which Charged the Scots, ſo totally Routed and defeated their whole Army, that they fled all ways for many Miles together, and were knock'd on the head, and taken Priſoners by the Country, [...]
They write with eloquence against the men, using the men’s own language to embarrass them and sometimes even to rout them.
2009 January 30, Adam Entous, “Mitchell Warns of Setbacks ahead in Mideast Talks”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 2 February 2009:
Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after Hamas routed secular Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and seized control of the enclave in June 2007.
2005, Brian Todd Carey, “Warfare in the Ancient Near East: The Bronze and Early Iron Ages”, in Warfare in the Ancient World, Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, published 2013, →ISBN, page 18:
The Ra division broke in panic and fled up against the just-arriving Amon division, which as a result began to rout as well.
Translations
to completely defeat and force into disorderly retreat
instance of loud and continued exclamation or shouting — see clamour, outcry
Etymology 5
A variant of wrout,[14] itself a variant of wroot(“to search or root in the ground”)(obsolete), from Middle Englishwroten(“to search or root in the ground; of a person: to dig earth; of a worm: to slither, wriggle; to corrode; of a worm: to irritate by biting the skin; to destroy (a fortification) by digging or mining”) (whence root), from Old Englishwrōtan(“to root up or rummage with the snout”).[15] from Proto-West Germanic*wrōtan, from Proto-Germanic*wrōtaną(“to dig with the nose or snout, to root”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps related to Proto-Indo-European*wréh₂ds(“a root”), cf. Englishwort, Englishroot .
Nevertheless, he was always stimulated by Winsett, and whenever he caught sight of the journalist's lean bearded face and melancholy eyes he would rout him out of his corner and carry him off for a long talk.
1859, “The Merrie Days of England”, in The National Magazine, volume V, London: W. Kent & Co., →OCLC, page 154, column 1:
et us try to realise a party of people arriving before daybreak, on a cold mizzly morning, at a sloppy piece of grassland, routed up by vagrant pigs, and poached into holes by horses out for their Sunday holiday, [...]
1864 July, H. H. B., “The Herds of Great Britain”, in The Farmer’s Magazine, volume XXIV (Third Series; volume LVI overall), number 1, London: Rogerson and Tuxford,, →OCLC, chapter XLIV (The Butley Abbey, the Playford, and the Wherstead), page 6:
Here was Christmas with some Shorthorns, a black sow of Black Diamond blood, and one of the very best of the day, busily routing by the brook side, and a two-year-old cross between a blood horse and a Suffolk mare.
Possibly a variant of root(“to dig or pull out by the roots; to abolish, exterminate, root out”), from Middle Englishwroten; see further at etymology 5. Some recent uses are difficult to tell apart from rout(“of an animal, especially a pig: to search (for something) in the ground with the snout; to search for and find (something)”).[16]