bout
/ˈbaʊt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.05 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness.
noun
A boxing match.
noun
noun
noun
A bulge or widening in a musical instrument, such as either of the two characteristic bulges of a guitar.
noun
The going and returning of a plough, or other implement used to mark the ground and create a headland, across a field.
Dated
verb
To contest a bout.
Example Sentences
- "a bout of drought"
- "a coughing bout"
- "a long bout of the flu"
- "I've boxed in exhibition bouts to entertain the crowds."
- "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)."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English bout, bowt, bught (whence also modern English bought (“bend, curve”)), probably from Old English *buht (“bend, turn”), an unrecorded variant of Old English byht (“a bend, curve”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhti, from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“a bend”). Equivalent to bow + -t. Doublet of bight and bought. Compare Dutch bocht and German Bucht. For the sense development compare bender.