spout

/spaʊt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Canada/spʌʊt/

spout noun: a tube or lip through which liquid or steam is poured or discharged.

Image: Pearson Scott Foresman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

spout (plural spouts)

A tube or lip through which liquid or steam is poured or discharged.
- I dropped my china teapot, and its spout broke.
- I put a spout in the maple tree to collect its sap
A waterspout (“channel through which water is discharged, especially from the gutters of a roof”).
A stream or discharge of liquid, typically with some degree of force.
- A spout of blood flew from his mouth, spattering Smichov's linen trousers.2010, James Fleming, Cold Blood, page 160
A stream of water that falls from higher to lower; a (typically thin) waterfall.
- […] the river rushes over the Auchinlilie Lin or Spout, a tremendous chataract^([sic]); after which it proceeds in a more quiet course, and is navigable to the village of Carron Shore.1805, Robert Forsyth, The Beauties of Scotland: Containing a Clear and Full Account of the Agriculture, Commerce, Mines, and Manufactures; of the Population, Cities, Towns, Villages, &c. of Each...
- The Spout of Garnock is a wild and romantic waterfall upon that stream in the moors of Kilbirnie parish. The rock here is also porphyry. The porphyry upon the east side of the fall is much rent, and has fallen forward[…]1839, Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Edinburgh, Prize-essays and Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, page 434
A similar stream or fall of earth, rock, etc.
- The great spout of broken mineral, which had damned the canyon up.1883, The Silverado Squatters, Stevenson, section 234
- From the side of the hill … a spout of gravel was dislodged.'1883, Stevenson, Treasure Island, xv
A waterspout (“whirlwind or tornado that forms over water”).
- He ought to haue expert coniecture of Stormes, Tempestes, and Spoutes: and such lyke Meteorologicall effectes, daungerous on Sea.2020 [1570], John Dee, The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara, →ISBN, page 69
The mixture of air and water thrown up from the blowhole of a whale.
(Australia) A hollow stump formed when a tree branch breaks off.

Verb

spout (third-person singular simple present spouts, present participle spouting, simple past and past participle spouted)

(intransitive) To gush forth in a jet or stream
- Water spouts from a hole.
(ambitransitive) To eject water or liquid in a jet.
- The whale spouted.
- The mighty whale […] spouts the tide.1697, Thomas Creech, The Whale
(intransitive) To speak tediously or pompously.
(transitive) To utter magniloquently; to recite in an oratorical or pompous manner.
- Pray, spout some French, son.c. 1608–1610, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Coxcomb”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iv
(dated, slang, transitive) To pawn; to pledge.
- to spout a watch

spout meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

spout in Tamil

நீரை ஊற்றும் சிறிய குழாய், குழாய் வடிவத்தில் ஓடும் நீர்

spout in Bengali

নল, ধারাপাত

More languagesFewer languages

spout in Malayalam: നാളം, നാളി, കുഴൽ, ഓവ്
spout in Kannada: ಮೂಳಿ, ಚಿಮ್ಮುಗೆ, ಚಿಮ್ಮು, ಹೊರಹರಿ
spout in Malay: cerat, muncung, pancut
spout in Persian: چرنه čorne, نول nul

Examples of spout in a sentence

[…] a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap.1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage: Travels with a Donkey [in the Cévennes], page 219:
[…] you can follow a footpath from the fine Victorian Mallyan Spout Hotel to the national park's most famous waterfalls – the 80ft-high Mallyan Spout.2015 April 1, Jos Simon, The Rough Guide to Yorkshire, Rough Guides UK, →ISBN, page 245:

All 40 example sentences with spout

Forms of spout

Noun
plural	spouts
Verb
third-person singular present	spouts
present participle	spouting
past participle	spouted
past	spouted

Plural of spout: spouts

Origin of spout

From Middle English spouten, from Middle Dutch spoiten, spouten (> Dutch spuiten (“to spout”)), from Old Dutch *spūten, *spīuten, *spīwetten, from Proto-West Germanic *spīwattjan, from Proto-Germanic *spīwatjaną. Compare Swedish spruta (“squirt, syringe”). See also spit, spew.

Words formed from spout

Phrases with spout

water spout

Words that rhyme with spout

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spout

What does spout mean?: Spout means a tube or lip through which liquid or steam is poured or discharged.
What is spout in Hindi?: Spout in Hindi is टोंटी (ṭõṭī). See Spout meaning in Hindi.
How do you use spout in a sentence?: […] a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap.
What part of speech is spout?: Spout can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce spout?: Spout is pronounced /spaʊt/.
What is the plural of spout?: The plural of spout is spouts.

Words near spout in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: spout (page history and authors); टोंटी (Hindi) (page history and authors); spout (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spout (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spout (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spout (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spout (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-spout.ogg.

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