spout
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /spaʊt/
ipa: /spʌʊt/
rhymes: -aʊt
Forms: form: spouts
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: I dropped my china teapot, and its spout broke.
text: I put a spout in the maple tree to collect its sap
glosses: A tube or lip through which liquid or steam is poured or discharged.
glosses: A waterspout (“channel through which water is discharged, especially from the gutters of a roof”).
examples: text: A spout of blood flew from his mouth, spattering Smichov's linen trousers.
ref: 2010, James Fleming, Cold Blood, page 160:
glosses: A stream or discharge of liquid, typically with some degree of force.
examples: text: […] 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.
ref: 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 County ..., page 388:
text: 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[…]
ref: 1839, Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Edinburgh, Prize-essays and Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, page 434:
text: […] a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap.
ref: 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage: Travels with a Donkey [in the Cévennes], page 219:
text: […] 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. When you get to the beck, turn left, and the waterfall is a couple of hundred yards along the bank; it can be wet underfoot[…]
ref: 2015 April 1, Jos Simon, The Rough Guide to Yorkshire, Rough Guides UK, →ISBN, page 245:
glosses: A stream of water that falls from higher to lower; a (typically thin) waterfall.
examples: text: The great spout of broken mineral, which had damned the canyon up.
ref: 1883, The Silverado Squatters, Stevenson, section 234:
text: From the side of the hill … a spout of gravel was dislodged.'
ref: 1883, Stevenson, Treasure Island, xv
glosses: A similar stream or fall of earth, rock, etc.
examples: text: He ought to haue expert coniecture of Stormes, Tempestes, and Spoutes: and such lyke Meteorologicall effectes, daungerous on Sea.
ref: 2020 [1570], John Dee, The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara, →ISBN, page 69:
glosses: A waterspout (“whirlwind or tornado that forms over water”).
glosses: The mixture of air and water thrown up from the blowhole of a whale.
glosses: A hollow stump formed when a tree branch breaks off.
Coordinate terms: sense: tube through which liquid is discharged
word: nozzle
Derived terms: lick spout
up the spout
waterspout