Word
gout
US/ˈɡaʊt/
UK/ɡˈaʊt/
Definitions
01medical condition
n. a painful type of arthritis that causes swelling in the joints, often starting in the big toe.
n. a metabolic disease marked by uric acid deposits in the joints, causing recurrent attacks of acute inflammatory arthritis.
“His grandfather suffered from gout and had to avoid certain rich foods.”
“The patient presented with classic symptoms of gout, including intense pain and erythema localized in the first metatarsophalangeal joint.”
Technical
Usage
Usually treated as an uncountable noun.
Synonyms
02a large drop
n. a large drop or splash of a liquid, especially blood.
n. a large drop, clot, or splash, typically of blood or another thick liquid.
“The knight's sword was covered in gouts of dark blood after the battle.”
“The poet described the battlefield with visceral imagery, focusing on the gouts of gore that stained the trampled grass.”
Literary
Usage
Often used in the plural form 'gouts of'.
03to spurt
v. to flow or splash out in large drops.
v. to spurt or splash out in large drops or quantities.
“Water began to gout from the cracked pipe in heavy pulses.”
“As the pressure mounted, the dark oil began to gout from the fissure, coating the surrounding rocks in a thick film.”
Archaic · Literary
Etymology
From Middle English goute, from Old French gote, gute, from Latin gutta (“drop”). Compare Spanish gota (“drop, droplet”). Doublet of goutte and gutta. The sense shift derived from humorism and "the notion of the 'dropping' of a morbid material from the blood in and around the joints".
From French goût.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/gout