knout

English

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /naʊt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): [nʌʊt]
• Rhymes: -aʊt

Noun

knout (plural knouts)

1. 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.
   • 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 II, London: E[dward] Moxon, Son & Co., […], published 1874, →OCLC, page 217:

     In Moscow, a Court carbonadoes / His ignorant serfs with the knout; / […] / But Eton has crueller terrors / Than these,—in the Windsor Express.

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair:

     Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.

   • 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 14:

     “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.”

   • 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:

     Spray and then slogging knouts of water hit the windows or lights like snarling disaffected at a mansion of the rich and frivolous.

   • 2005, James Meek, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, published 2006, page 193:

     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.

Hypernyms

• scourge

Translations

kind of whip

Bashkir: сыбыртҡы (sıbırtqı) Czech: bič (cs) m, knuta (cs) f Dutch: knoet (nl) Esperanto: knuto Faroese: knútakoyril m Finnish: nagaikka (fi) French: knout (fr) m Georgian: როზგი (rozgi), შოლტი (ka) (šolṭi), მათრახი (ka) (matraxi) German: Knute (de) f Hungarian: kancsuka (hu) Ido: knuto (io) Italian: knut m or m pl Latvian: pātaga f Polish: knut (pl) m, nahajka (pl) f, bicz (pl) m Russian: кнут (ru) m (knut), нага́йка (ru) f (nagájka), хлыст (ru) m (xlyst), бич (ru) m (bič), ро́зга (ru) m (rózga) Spanish: knut (es) m or m pl Swedish: knutpiska (sv) c, knut (sv) c

Verb

knout (third-person singular simple present knouts, present participle knouting, simple past and past participle knouted)

1. To flog or beat with a knout.
   • 1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:

     Different, isn’t it? It’s called kava, by the way. The Fijians make it by knouting some root or other.

Synonyms

• (to whip or scourge): Thesaurus:whip

Derived terms

• knouter

Anagrams

• Kutno

French

Etymology

From Russian кнут (knut), from Old East Slavic кнутъ (knutŭ), from Old Norse knútr (“knot”). Doublet of nœud.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /knut/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Noun

knout m (plural knouts)

1. knout, scourge
2. a flogging administered with such a multiple whip; a condemnation to suffer it

Descendants

• → English: knout

Further reading

• “knout”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.