Word.ws English Dictionary

stout

/staʊt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Canada/stʌʊt/

stout adjective: large; bulky.

stout: large; bulky
Image: Jon Sullivan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

stout (comparative stouter, superlative stoutest)

  1. Large; bulky.
    • Yossarian walked out of the office and down the stairs into the dark, tomblike street, passing in the hall the stout woman with warts and two chins, who was already on her way back in.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 427
    Synonyms:
    thickset, corpulent, fat
  2. (obsolete) Bold, strong-minded.
    • Art thou but Captaine of a thouſand horſe,
      That by Characters grauen in thy browes,
      And by thy martiall face and ſtout aſpect,
      Deſeru’ſt to haue the leading of an hoſte?c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    • a stouter champion never handled sword.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  3. (obsolete) Proud; haughty.
    • Your words have been stout against me.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Malachi 3:13
    • Commonly […] they that be rich are lofty and stout.1552, Hugh Latimer, The Fifth Sermon Preached on the Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Trinity, 1552
    Synonyms:
    arrogant, hard, haughty
  4. Firm; resolute; dauntless.
    • "Thin the masther called out Dinny Moran, an' dhragged him up to one o' the Dublin young ladies, an' bid Dinny be stout an' ax her out to dance wid him."1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 517
    • he had reason to be extremely grateful to Sterling, his Manchester City teammate, who won and converted the penalty that appeared to have broken Iceland’s stout resistance.2020 September 5, David Hytner, “Raheem Sterling keeps his cool to see off Iceland amid blaze of late drama”, in The Guardian
  5. Materially strong, enduring.
    • Campers prefer stout vessels, sticks and cloth.
    • […] Pipes, who acted as the enemy's forlorn hope, advanced to the gate with great intrepidity, and clapping his foot to the door, which was none of the ſtouteſt, with the execution and diſpatch of a petard, ſplit it into a thouſand pieces.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “He is Concerned in a Dangerous Adventure with a Certain Gardener; […]”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume I, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 134
  6. Obstinate.
  7. (Ireland) drunk.
    • Yit sum people used to wink an' luk knowin' whin Failey was gostherin', fur it was obsarved that he was mighty shy o' crassin' the foord o' Ahnamoe afther nightfall; an' that whin onst he was ridin' past the ould church o' Tipper in the dark, tho' he'd got enough o' pottheen into him to make any...1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 376

Noun (1)

stout (plural stouts)

  1. A dark and strong malt brew made with toasted grain.
    • Stout is darker, stronger and sweeter than porter beer.
    • To be precise, he had an immense plate of steak and oysters, and a bottle of stout.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 155
  2. A serving of this beer.
  3. An obese person.
    • Incidentally the survey pointed up the sad plight of the stylish stouts, today's “forgotten men.” The clothing situation is getting so critical for them that they may have to choose between eating and dressing.1946, Printers' Ink
  4. A large clothing size.
    • The all-around waist is increased or over-built, according to size, which makes this form a stout.1918, Isidor Rosenfeld, The Practical Designer for Women's and Misses' Underwear - The Study of the Stout Form

Verb

stout (third-person singular simple present stouts, present participle stouting, simple past and past participle stouted)

  1. (archaic, intransitive) To be bold or defiant.
  2. (dialectal, transitive) To persist, endure.
    Synonyms:
    brook, thole

Noun (2)

stout (plural stouts)

  1. Gnat.
    Synonyms:
    midge
  2. Gadfly.
    Synonyms:
    horsefly
  3. (dialectal) Firefly or miller (moth).

Proper noun capitalized: Stout

Stout (countable and uncountable, plural Stouts)

  1. A surname.
  2. A former town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States.
  3. A minor city in Grundy County, Iowa, United States.
  4. Synonym of Rome, Adams County, Ohio.
    Synonyms:
    Rome, Adams County, Ohio

stout meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

stout in Hindi

stout, fat, plump, corpulent, thick
पीवर pīvar
stout, powerful
तगड़ा tagṛā

stout in Tamil

உறமிக்க, தடித்த, பருத்த

stout in Marathi

स्टाउट

stout in Urdu

stout, powerful
تگڑا tagṛā
More languagesFewer languages
stout in Bengali
মোটা, শক্তিশালী, সাহসী
stout in Telugu
లావు lāvu, బూర būra, స్థూలము sthūlamu, మొద్దు moddu
stout in Malayalam
കരു karu
stout in Kannada
ದಿಂಡು, ತೋರ, ದಪ್ಪ, ಬಿಣ್
stout in Punjabi
ਸਟੌਟ
stout in Gujarati
સ્ટાઉટ, સ્ટેઉટ, સ્ટાઉથ
stout in Odia
ଷ୍ଟାଉଟ୍
stout in Nepali
स्टाउट, स्टुट गर्न

Examples of stout in a sentence

  • He quickly lost the character of a bold, stout, magnanimous man.1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in...
  • The lords all stand / To clear their cause, most resolutely stout.1609, Samuel Daniel, The Civile Wares:
  • So, Andover featured in the Glorious Revolution, which involved the deposition of Catholic fraterniser James II and his replacement by stout Protestants William and Mary.2023 June 28, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: Alton to Exeter”, in RAIL, number 986, page 58:
  • Nothing could be more business-like than the construction of the stout dams, and nothing more gently rural than the limpid lakes, with the grand old forest trees marshalled round their margins … .1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad:

All 40 example sentences with stout

Synonyms of stout

8 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of stout

Forms of stout

Adjective
comparativestouter
superlativestoutest
Noun
pluralstouts
alternative form (dialectal)stoat
alternative form (dialectal)stut
Verb
third-person singular presentstouts
present participlestouting
past participlestouted
paststouted
Proper noun
pluralStouts

Origin of stout

From Middle English stoute, from Old French estout (“brave, fierce, proud”) (Modern French dialectal stout (“proud”)), from earlier Old French estolt (“strong”), from Frankish *stolt, *stult (“bold, proud”), from Proto-Germanic *stultaz (“bold, proud”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to put, stand”). Cognate with Dutch stout (“stout, bold, naughty”), Low German stolt (“stately, proud”), German stolz (“proud, haughty, arrogant, stately”), Old Norse stoltr (“proud”) (Danish stolt (“proud”), Icelandic stoltur (“proud”)). Meaning "strong in body, powerfully built" was first attested in c. 1386, but has been to a large extent displaced by the euphemistic meaning "thick-bodied, fat and large," which is first recorded 1804. Original sense preserved in stout-hearted (1552). The noun "strong, dark-brown beer" is first recorded 1677, from the adjective.

From Middle English stouten, from the adjective (see above).

From Middle English stout, from Old English stūt (“gnat; midge”).

Words formed from stout

Words that rhyme with stout

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stout

What does stout mean?
Stout means large; bulky.
What is stout in Hindi?
Stout in Hindi is पीवर (pīvar), तगड़ा (tagṛā). See Stout meaning in Hindi.
How do you use stout in a sentence?
He quickly lost the character of a bold, stout, magnanimous man.
What part of speech is stout?
Stout can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce stout?
Stout is pronounced /staʊt/.

Words near stout in the dictionary

  1. Stourton with Gasper
  2. stoush
  3. stoushed
  4. stoushes
  5. stoushing
  6. stout
  7. stout-hearted
  8. stout-heartedly
  9. stout-heartedness
  10. stout-legged moa
  11. stout-legged moas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stout (page history and authors); Stout (page history and authors); तगड़ा (Hindi) (page history and authors); stout (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stout (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); تگڑا (Urdu) (page history and authors); stout (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); బూర (Telugu) (page history and authors); കരു (Malayalam) (page history and authors); stout (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stout (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stout (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stout (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stout (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-stout.ogg.

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