| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| rout1 |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  rout |
| NOUN: | 1a. A disorderly retreat or flight following defeat. b. An overwhelming defeat. 2a. A disorderly crowd of people; a mob. b. People of the lowest class; rabble. 3. A public disturbance; a riot. 4. A company, as of knights or wolves, that are in movement. See synonyms at flock1. 5. A fashionable gathering. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: rout·ed, rout·ing, routs
1. To put to disorderly flight or retreat: “the flock of starlings which Jasper had routed with his gun” (Virginia Woolf). 2. To defeat overwhelmingly. See synonyms at defeat. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English route, from Old French, troop, defeat, from Vulgar Latin *rupta, from feminine of Latin ruptus, past participle of rumpere, to break. See reup- in Appendix I.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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