Other forms: louts
A lout is a rough ill-mannered young man. A drunken lout, a pack of louts, behave like a lout.
It is British and dismissive, and it is aimed almost entirely at young men. Loutish behaviour is the phrase in complaints and police reports. It comes from an old verb meaning to stoop, and the sense of clumsiness came from that.
1nounloutA rough ill-mannered young man.
“A drunken lout shouted at passengers on the last train home.”
lout is an insult.
From Middle English louten, to bow or stoop, from Old English lutan.
Proto-Germanic
*lūtaną — to bow down, lout
Proto-West Germanic
*lūtan
Old English
lūtan — to bow, bend forward, stoop
Middle English
louten — to bow, bend low, stoop over
English, today
lout
Of dialectal origin, likely derived from Middle English louten (“to bow, bend low, stoop over”), from Old English lūtan (“to bow, bend forward, stoop”), from Proto-West Germanic lūtan, from Proto-Germanic lūtaną (“to bow down, lout”). Alternatively, derived from Middle English louten (“to hide, lurk”), from Old English lūtian (“to lurk, skulk”), from Proto-West Germanic lūtēn (“to be hidden, be concealed”). Compare Old Norse lútr (“stooping”), Gothic 𐌻𐌿𐍄𐍉𐌽 (“to deceive”). Non-Germanic cognates are probably cu лоудити (“to deceive”), Serbo-Croatian lud and Albanian lut (“to beg, pray”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA