Word.ws English Dictionary

bout

/ˈbaʊt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Canada/bʌʊt/

bout noun: a period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness.

Noun

bout (plural bouts)

  1. A period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness.
    • a bout of drought
    • a coughing bout
    Synonyms:
    attack
  2. A boxing match.
    • An Italian boxer abandoned her bout at the Paris Olympics after only 46 seconds on Thursday, refusing to continue after taking a heavy punch from an Algerian opponent who had been disqualified from last year’s world championships over questions about her eligibility to compete in women’s sports.2024 August 1, Tariq Panja, Jeré Longman, “Italian Boxer Quits Bout, Sparking Furor Over Gender at Olympics”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2024
  3. An assault (a fencing encounter) at which the score is kept.
  4. (roller derby) A roller derby match.
  5. A fighting competition.
    • Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they gained in skill and strength.1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC
  6. A bulge or widening in a musical instrument, such as either of the two characteristic bulges of a guitar.
  7. (dated) The going and returning of a plough, or other implement used to mark the ground and create a headland, across a field.
    • 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...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...
    • It is in this manner that the ploughs are reversed at the termination of each bout of the field.1922, “An Ingenious One-Way Agrimotor”, in The Commercial Motor, volume 34, Temple Press, page 32

Verb

bout (third-person singular simple present bouts, present participle bouting, simple past and past participle bouted)

  1. To contest a bout.

Preposition

bout

  1. (colloquial) Apheretic form of about.
    • They're talking bout you!
    • Maddy is bout to get beat up!

Proper noun capitalized: Bout

Bout (plural Bouts)

  1. A surname

bout meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

bout in Hindi

बाउट

bout in Tamil

பிணித்தாக்கம், பிணியின் மிகத் தாக்கம்

bout in Urdu

باؤٹ

bout in Bengali

বাউট
More languagesFewer languages
bout in Malayalam
തവണ, ശക്തിപരീക്ഷണം
bout in Nepali
बाउट, टु बाउट

Examples of bout in a sentence

  • a long bout of the flu
  • I've boxed in exhibition bouts to entertain the crowds.
  • Pope Francis was admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital on Friday, February 14, 2025, after suffering from a bout of bronchitis for several days.2025 April 21, Devin Watkins, “Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday aged 88”, in Vatican News, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2025:
  • It is drawn by four horses, and completely prepares the land for the seed at each bout.1809, “A Letter to Sir John Sinclair […] containing a Statement of the System under which a considerable Farm is profitably managed in...
  • 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. […]1976, Claude Culpin, Farm Machinery, page 60:
  • He talked to Kathy Fri nite bout having a dress up party at her place.1973 January 9, Lou Sullivan, Diary:

All 40 example sentences with bout

Synonyms of bout

Forms of bout

Noun
pluralbouts
Verb
third-person singular presentbouts
present participlebouting
past participlebouted
pastbouted
Proper noun
pluralBouts

Plural of bout: bouts

Origin of bout

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.

Written form of a reduction of about.

Words formed from bout

Phrases with bout

Words that rhyme with bout

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bout

What does bout mean?
Bout means a period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness.
What is bout in Hindi?
Bout in Hindi is बाउट. See Bout meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bout in a sentence?
a long bout of the flu
What part of speech is bout?
Bout can be a noun, a verb, a preposition or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bout?
Bout is pronounced /ˈbaʊt/.
What is the plural of bout?
The plural of bout is bouts.

Words near bout in the dictionary

  1. boustrophedonical
  2. boustrophedonically
  3. boustrophedons
  4. boustrophic
  5. bousy
  6. bout
  7. bouta
  8. boutade
  9. boutades
  10. boutargue
  11. Boutboul

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bout (page history and authors); Bout (page history and authors); bout (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bout (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bout (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bout (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bout (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bout (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bout.wav.

Cite this entry: “bout.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bout. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.