coot
/kuːt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.50 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "A silly coot"
- "An old coot"
- "A rich coot"
- "Once more he thought aloud. / "Tom wouldn't lie to me, so it wasn't gin. Now, I wonder. I wonder if that old coot has got what they call 'delusions of grandeur'?""
- "Your clerks would come in and see you aswingin' and aswayin' there and one of them would say: "Well, the old coot's hung himself!""
- "“You'll be able now to give it as your considered opinion that [Wilbert Cream] is as loony as a coot, Sir Roderick.” A pause ensued during which [the psychiatrist] appeared to be weighing this, possibly thinking back to coots he had met in the course of his professional career and trying to estimate their dippiness as compared with that of W. Cream."
Etymology
From Middle English cote, coote, cute, cuytt (“coot”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from an unrecorded Old English word, or borrowed from Middle Dutch coet, cuut, kuut (“coot”) (whence modern Dutch koet and meerkoet (“coot”)). Possibly related to Middle High German kūz, kūze (modern German Kauz (“owl”)), Old English cȳta (“kite, bittern”) (whence English kite), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *kūt (“bird of prey”). See kite.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- British usage
- Colloquial
- Slang
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
American coot
Andean coot
Caribbean coot
Eurasian coot
giant coot
Hawaiian coot
horned coot
Fulica cornuta)