Knout

/naʊt/ · noun

Meaning

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..

Definitions by Sense

1. 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.
2. To flog or beat with a knout.

Example Sentences

In Moscow, a Court carbonadoes / His ignorant serfs with the knout; / […] / But Eton has crueller terrors / Than these,—in the Windsor Express.

Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.

“I don't suppose a Russian convict under the knout is able to amuse the rest of his gang; and all our men-folk here are gilded convicts.”

Spray and then slogging knouts of water hit the windows or lights like snarling disaffected at a mansion of the rich and frivolous.

The lieutenant gave him twenty strokes of the knout and stuck him in a cage for a few days till the snow was ankle deep.

Different, isn’t it? It’s called kava, by the way. The Fijians make it by knouting some root or other.

Synonyms for knout

Antonyms for knout

Related Words

Word Forms

• knouts
• knouting
• knouted

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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