Knout definition

nout
knouts
See word origin
Frequency:
A leather whip formerly used in Russia to flog criminals.
noun
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To flog with a knout.
verb
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To flog with a knout.
verb
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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.
noun
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To flog or beat with a knout.

verb
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A leather scourge used for flogging.
noun
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1

Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
knout
Plural:
knouts

Origin of knout

  • French from Russian knut from Old Russian knutŭ from Old Norse knūtr knot in cord

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Via French, from Russian кнут (knut), from Old Norse knútr (“knot in a cord”).

    From Wiktionary

Knout Sentence Examples

  • But she could order the use of the knout and of mutilation as freely as the most barbarous of her predecessors when she thought the authority of the state was at stake, and she did employ them readily to suppress all opinions of a heterodox kind, whether in matters of religion or of politics, after the beginning of the French Revolution.

  • Accordingly, on the 10th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received twentyfive strokes with the knout (as then administered nobody ever survived thirty), and on the 24th fifteen more.

  • The proprietors could transport without trial their unruly serfs to Siberia or send them to the mines for life, and those who presented complaints against their masters were punished with the knout and condemned to the mines.

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Words near knout in the Dictionary