routs

Noun

rout (countable and uncountable, plural routs)

1. (countable, obsolete) A group of people; a crowd, a throng, a troop; in particular (archaic), a group of people accompanying or travelling with someone.
   • A route of people there aſſembled were, / Of euery ſort and nation vnder skye, [...]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 44, page 284

   Synonyms:

   company, gathering

2. (archaic, collective, countable) A group of animals, especially one which is lively or unruly, or made up of wild animals such as wolves; a flock, a herd, a pack.
   • The harts and hinds in their herds, the boars in their singulars, the skulls of foxes, the richesses of martens, the bevies of roes, the cetes of badgers and the routs of wolves - all came to him more or less as something which you either skinned or flayed and then took home to cook.1958, T.H. White, The Once and Future King
3. (collective, countable) A group or assortment of snails.
   • hiruvananthapuram: Routs of snails are invading parts of the city, sending residents into a tizzy, amid fears that they would pose a health hazardAugust 4, 2011, Mohamed Nazeer, “Archived copy”, in The Hindu News, archived from the original on 20 Sep 2018

   Synonyms:

   escargatoire

4. (countable) A group of disorganized things.
5. (countable) A group of (often violent) criminals or gangsters; such people as a class; (more generally) a disorderly and tumultuous crowd, a mob; hence (archaic, preceded by the), the common people as a group, the rabble.
   • 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.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 51, page 74
6. (countable, dated) A fashionable assembly; a large evening party, a soirée.
   • 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...1783 May, “Domestic Occurrences. [Thursday 8.]”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, volume LIII, London: […] John Nichols, for D....

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