rout
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Completely defeating an army or other enemy force, causing it to retreat in a disorganized way.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rowtIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹaʊt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
originally military
The act of completely defeating an army or other enemy force, causing it to retreat in a disorganized manner; (by extension) in politics, sport, etc.: a convincing defeat; a thrashing, a trouncing.
A loud shout; a bellow, a roar; also, an instance of loud and continued exclamation or shouting; a clamour, an outcry.
countable
A group of disorganized things.
A disorderly crowd of people
A lowing or mooing sound by an animal, especially cattle; a bellow, a moo.
verb
Defeat disastrously
transitive
To completely defeat and force into disorderly retreat (an enemy force, opponent in sport, etc.).
Make a groove in
intransitive
Of a person: to speak loudly; to bellow, roar, to shout.
intransitive
Of an animal, especially cattle: to low or moo loudly; to bellow.
Dig with the snout
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of completely defeating an army or other enemy force, causing it to retreat in a disorganized manner; (by extension) in politics, sport, etc.: a convincing defeat; a thrashing, a trouncing.
Used this way, rout is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Sports
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A worker who routes shipments for distribution and delivery.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A woodworking plane with a narrow cutting head that will make grooves with smooth bottoms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.