Etymology

bout

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Today it means: A period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness. Full definition →

Middle English bout ← Old English *buht ← Proto-West Germanic *buhti
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bout · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*buhtiz“a bend”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*buhti
  3. Old English · inherited frombyht“a bend, curve”
  4. Old English · inherited from*buht“bend, turn”
  5. Middle English · inherited frombout
  6. English todaybout

From Middle English bout, bowt, bught (whence also modern English bought (“bend, curve”)), probably from Old English *buht (“bend, turn”), an unrecorded variant of Old English byht (“a bend, curve”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhti, from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“a bend”). Doublet of bight and bought. Compare Dutch bocht and German Bucht. For the sense development compare bender.

bout · preposition2

Written form of a reduction of about.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishbyht all →

bight

Proto-West Germanic*buhti all →

bight

Proto-Germanic*buhtiz all →

bight

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.