knout
/naʊt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Canada[nʌʊt]
knout noun: 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.
Noun
knout (plural knouts)
- 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.
- In Moscow, a Court carbonadoes / His ignorant serfs with the knout; / […] / But Eton has crueller terrors / Than these,—in the Windsor Express.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...
- Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair
Verb
knout (third-person singular simple present knouts, present participle knouting, simple past and past participle knouted)
knout meaning in Urdu and Kannada
knout in Urdu
- درہ, کوڑا, تازیانہ, درہ لگانا, کوڑا مارنا
knout in Kannada
- ಚಾಟಿ
Examples of knout in a sentence
- “I don't suppose a Russian convict under the knout is able to amuse the rest of his gang; and all our men-folk here are gilded convicts.”1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 14:
- Spray and then slogging knouts of water hit the windows or lights like snarling disaffected at a mansion of the rich and frivolous.1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:
- 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.2005, James Meek, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, published 2006, page 193:
Synonyms of knout
Forms of knout
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | knouts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | knouts |
| present participle | knouting |
| past participle | knouted |
| past | knouted |
Origin of knout
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.
Words formed from knout
Words that rhyme with knout
42 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- set about
- shout
- sprout
- doubt
- umlaut
- fill out
- grout
- pout
- devout
- drought
- gout
- nowt
- redoubt
- throughout
- without
- ablaut
- dout
- flout
- lout
- mahout
- misdoubt
- mought
- prone out
- strout
- term out
- trout
- zoom out
- 'bout
- anlaut
- aspout
- asprout
- bluff out
- chout
- dought
- kraut
- layabout
- ne'er cast a clout till May be out
- owt
- peter out
- regrout
- sout
- when in doubt, do nowt
Questions about knout
- What does knout mean?
- Knout means 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.
- What is knout in Urdu?
- Knout in Urdu is درہ, کوڑا, تازیانہ. See Knout meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use knout in a sentence?
- “I don't suppose a Russian convict under the knout is able to amuse the rest of his gang; and all our men-folk here are gilded convicts.”
- What part of speech is knout?
- Knout can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce knout?
- Knout is pronounced /naʊt/.
- What is the plural of knout?
- The plural of knout is knouts.
Words near knout in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: knout (page history and authors); knout (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); knout (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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-knout.wav.
Cite this entry: “knout.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knout. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.