strut
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /stɹʌt/
ipa: [stɹɐt]
ipa: [stɹʊ̈t]
ipa: /stɹʌt/
ipa: /stɹət/
rhymes: -ʌt
ipa: /stɹʊt/
note: Fiji
ipa: /stɹʌt/
note: Fiji
ipa: [stɹʌt]
note: Fiji
ipa: [stɹɐt]
Forms: form: struts
form: strutting
form: strutted
form: strutted
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: strut
form: strut
form: strutted
form: strut
form: struttest
form: strutted
form: struttedst
form: struts
form: strutteth
form: strutted
form: strut
form: strutted
form: strut
form: strutted
form: strut
form: -
form: strutting
form: strutted
Etymology: The verb is derived from Middle English strouten, struten (“to bulge, swell; to protrude, stick out; to bluster, threaten; to object forcefully; to create a disturbance; to fight; to display one's clothes in a proud or vain manner”) [and other forms], from Old English strūtian (“to project out; stand out stiffly; to exert oneself, struggle”), from Proto-Germanic *strūtōną, *strūtijaną (“to be puffed up, swell”), from Proto-Indo-European *streudʰ- (“rigid, stiff”), from *(s)ter- (“firm; strong; rigid, stiff”).
The English word is cognate with Danish strutte (“to bulge, bristle”), Low German strutt (“stiff”), Middle High German striuzen (“to bristle; to ruffle”) (modern German strotzen (“to bristle up”), sträußen (obsolete, except in Alemannic)); and compare Gothic 𐌸𐍂𐌿𐍄𐍃𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌻 (þrutsfill, “leprosy”), Old Norse þrútinn (“swollen”).
The noun is derived from the verb. Noun sense 2 (“instrument for adjusting the pleats of a ruff”) appears to be due to a misreading of a 16th-century work which used the word stroout (strouted (“caused (something) to bulge, protrude, or swell; strutted”)).
Senses: examples: text: Hark, hark, I heare, the ſtraine of ſtrutting Chanticlere cry cockadidle-dowe.
ref: 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 5, column 1:
text: The pheasant strutteth about in the midst of flowers; / The turtle-dove cooeth, and the nightingale warbleth from the cypress.
ref: 1883, Ferdusī [i.e., Ferdowsi], “The Gardens of Afrasiab”, in S[amuel] Robinson, transl., Persian Poetry for English Readers: Being Specimens of Six of the Greatest Classical Poets of Persia: Ferdusī, Nizāmī, Sādī, Jelāl-ad-dīn Rūmī, Hāfiz, and Jāmī […], [Glasgow]: […] [M‘Laren & Son] for private circulation, →OCLC, section IV (Miscellaneous Specimens of the “Shah-Namah”), page 93:
text: He thought that whenne Thanksgyving came he'd looke soe payle & thynne, / He colde avoid ye usual role ye Turkye strutteth inne.
ref: 1887 November 24, “Ye Scheme of Ye Turkye Bold: Ytts Faylure”, in Life, volume X, number 256, New York, N.Y.: Published at the Life Office – […], published 19 July 1883, →OCLC, page 288:
text: The pond was another favourite place to visit. Moorhens strutted from the neighbouring bushes, and a bevy of Muscovy ducks, a study in black, white and red, waddled from the farmyard hard by to enjoy a refreshing splash.
ref: 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 217:
glosses: Of a peacock or other fowl: to stand or walk stiffly, with the tail erect and spread out.
examples: text: He strutted about the yard, thinking himself master of all he surveyed.
text: [O]h, I ſhould remember him: do's he not hold vp his head (as it were?) and ſtrut in his gate?
ref: c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 42, column 2:
text: [...] I trow it is enough to make a man forswear the very mother that bore him, and to wish that he had never had one, when one is cooped up in a gloomy hole like this, to watch a door within which strutteth a jackanapes too proud to speak civil to those that approach him.
ref: 1850, Thomas Cooper, chapter XX, in Captain Cobler; or, The Lincolnshire Rebellion: An Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII, London: J[ames] Watson, […], →OCLC, page 191:
text: "With Mosaic cheers unglutted, / Stood he in this vast abode; / As thou struttest, so he strutted, / As thou crowest, so he crow'd— / He the well-beloved of Hansard, / Is he kin, sweet bird, to you?" / But the valiant bantam answer'd— / "Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo!"
ref: 1857 May, “[Lays of the Elections. By Various Rejected Contributors.] The Cock of the Hustings.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LXXXI, number CCCCXCIX (American edition, volume XLIV, number 5), New York, N.Y.: Published by the Leonard Scott & Co., […], →OCLC, page 632:
text: Hast thou nor shame, nor modesty, nor fear? / That thus thou struttest in the face of God, / Spreading thy peacock's feathers, with their gleam?
ref: 1867, Peter Macmorland, “A Preacher.—I. Sonnet.”, in Sabbath, an Ode: With Poems Suited to the Communion Season, 2nd edition, Edinburgh: H. Cameron, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 87:
text: "Hilloa, good fellow," quoth he, in a jovial voice, "who art thou that struttest in such gay feathers?"
ref: 1883, Howard Pyle, “Robin Hood Compasseth the Marriage of Two True Lovers”, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC, part fourth, page 148:
text: [...] I recognise the two Miss Boulters, the acknowledged queens of Welby society, each of whom has managed to secure a cavalier for escort; Margaret Watson flounces by with young Boulter, a stout, florid youth with an insinuating eye; Jo and Charlotte strut out together arm in arm with a funny imitation of their elders.
ref: 1888 September, [Amy Levy], “Griselda”, in Temple Bar: […] A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume LXXXIV, London: Richard Bentley & Son, […]; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers; Paris: Galignani, →OCLC, chapter II (A Welby Festival), page 73:
synonyms: swagger
high-side
glosses: To walk haughtily or proudly with one's head held high.
examples: text: Taking you and your colleagues as the model of modern times, I should almost fear that the John Bull of former days was as different from the John Bull of the present time, as is a broad-shouldered, fearless Highlandman from the dapper cockney who struts the Park by the side of his fellow-milliner.
ref: 1827, S[olomon] Atkinson, The Effects of the New System of Free Trade upon Our Shipping, Colonies & Commerce, Exposed in a Letter to the Right Hon. W[illiam] Huskisson, President of the Board of Trade, London: James Ridgeway, […], →OCLC, page 46:
text: The frantic father struts the stage, / And swells with true sublimity of rage / Against his son, who leads a wanton life, / And scorns the offer of a dowried wife.
ref: 1838, Horace, “Satire IV”, in David Hunter, transl., The Satires and Epistles of Horace, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, book I, pages 20–21, lines 63–66:
text: Still garbed in notions wont to gird / Minds in the reign of George the Third, / He strutteth an embodied tameness / In a sober suit of sameness.
ref: 1868, P. F. Roe, “Rhythmical Etchings of Character. No. III. Thomas Trite, Esquire.”, in Poems: Characteristic, Itinerary, and Miscellaneous, London: John Camden Hotten, […], →OCLC, page 51:
glosses: To walk across or on (a stage or other place) haughtily or proudly.
examples: text: Sometimes [the clitoris] groweth to such a length that it hangeth without the cleft like a mans member, especially when it is fretted with the touch of the cloaths, and so strutteth and groweth to a rigiditie as doth the yarde [penis] of a man.
ref: 1631, Helkiah Crooke, Μικροκοσμογραφια [Mikrokosmographia]. A Description of the Body of Man. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Thomas and Richard Cotes, and are to be sold by Michael Sparke, […], →OCLC; quoted in Valerie Traub, “The (In)Significance of ‘Lesbian’ Desire in Early Modern England”, in Jonathan Goldberg, editor, Queering the Renaissance, Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press, 1994, →ISBN, page 66:
text: If the right breaſt ſwell and ſtrut out the Boy is well, if it flag it is a ſign of miſcarriage, judge the ſame of the Girle by the left breaſt, when it is ſunk, or round and hard, the firſt ſignifies abortion to be near, the other health and ſafety both of the Mother and the Child.
ref: 1671, Jane Sharp, “Of the Sympathy between the Womb and Other Parts, and How It is Wrought upon by Them”, in The Midwives Book. Or The Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered. […], London: […] Simon Miller, […], →OCLC, book II, page 132:
text: The Pow'r appeas'd, with winds ſuffic'd the ſail, / The bellying canvas ſtrutted with the gale; [...]
ref: a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The First Book of Homer’s Ilias”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 441:
text: [T]hey cut the tree where they see the bark to be fullest of liquor, and whereas they perceive it to be thinnest and strut out most. [Quoting Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, book XII, chapter 14.]
ref: 1869 April 1, George Birdwood, “III. On the Genus Boswellia, with Descriptions and Figures of Three New Species. […]”, in The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, volume XXVII, 1st part, London: […] Taylor and Francis, […]; and by Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, […], →OCLC, page 123:
glosses: Often followed by out: to protuberate or stick out due to being full or swollen; to bulge, to swell.
examples: text: [H]e gains the glitt'ring prize, / And ſtruts the gaudy food of gazing eyes, / A thing—that oft his Footmen may deſpiſe.
ref: [1746?], One Thousand, Seven Hundred, and Forty-five. A Satiric Epistle after the Manner of Mr. [Alexander] Pope, London; Dublin: […] J. Kinneir, […], and A. Long, […], →OCLC, page 5:
synonyms: distend
glosses: Often followed by out: to cause (something) to bulge, protrude, or swell.
Derived terms: word: bestrut
word: foot-strut split
word: strut one's stuff
word: strutting
word: struttingly
Related terms: strout