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spout

UK/spaʊt/US/spaʊt/
nounB1+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,273 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: spouts

A spout is the lip a liquid is poured out through. The teapot spout, a chipped spout, pour from the spout.

A good one cuts off cleanly and a bad one dribbles, and the difference is a sharp edge that breaks the surface tension. Up the spout means ruined, or pregnant, in British slang. As a verb, to spout means to talk at length without stopping.

Creator:Jacob Boelen · CC0

Definitions of spout

  1. 1nounspoutThe lip a liquid is poured out through.B1+

    “Hot tea poured from the spout of the old brown teapot.”

spout is a lip.

Where it comes from

Middle English spouten comes from Middle Dutch spouten, to spout, from a Germanic root related to spitting.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *spīwatjaną

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *spīwattjan

  3. Old Dutch

    *spūten

  4. Middle Dutch

    spoiten

  5. Middle English

    spouten

  6. English, today

    spout

From Middle English spouten, from Middle Dutch spoiten, spouten (> Dutch spuiten (“to spout”)), from Old Dutch spūten, spīuten, spīwetten, from Proto-West Germanic spīwattjan, from Proto-Germanic spīwatjaną. Compare Swedish spruta (“squirt, syringe”). See also spit, spew.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

spout in the wild

  • A small air hole in the lid is often created to stop the spout from dripping and splashing when tea is poured.

    Teapot

  • A kettle, sometimes called a tea kettle or teakettle, is a device specialized for boiling water, commonly with a lid, spout, and handle.

    Kettle

  • In American English, a pitcher is a container with a handle and a spout, used for storing and pouring liquids.

    Pitcher (container)

  • Early examples of the bridge-spouted vessel are found in ancient Persia in the early Iron Age and on Crete.

    Bridge-spouted vessel

  • A very early example of a bridge-spouted vessel in Minoan pottery has been recovered at the ancient palace of Phaistos on Minoan Crete, dating to the Bronze Age.

    Bridge-spouted vessel

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • sputter