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knout

noun
/naʊt//nʌʊt/CA

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.

  1. derived from knútr — “knot in a cord”
  2. derived from кнутъ
  3. derived from кнут
  4. borrowed from knout

Definitions

  1. A leather scourge (multi-tail whip), in the severe version known as 'great knout' with…

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

  2. To flog or beat with a knout.

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

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for knout. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA