trout

From Middle English troute, troughte, trught, trouȝt, trouhte, partly from Old English truht (“trout”), and partly from Old French truite; both from Late Latin tructa, perhaps from Ancient Greek τρώκτης (trṓktēs, “nibbler”), from τρώγω (trṓgō, “I gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, to turn”). The Internet verb sense originated on BBSes of the 1980s, probably from Monty Python's The Fish-Slapping Dance (1972), though that sketch involved a halibut.

• IPA^(key): /tɹaʊt/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /tɹʌʊt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊt

trout (countable and uncountable, plural trout or trouts)

1. Any of several species of fish in Salmonidae, closely related to salmon, and distinguished by spawning more than once.

   Many anglers consider trout to be the archetypical quarry.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:

     Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: […] .

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎:

     “This morning,” he said, “We will fish, Turner. We will cast for trout so that we may catch grayling.”

2. (Britain, derogatory) An objectionable elderly woman.

   Look, you silly old trout, you can't keep bringing home cats! You can't afford the ones you have!

trout (third-person singular simple present trouts, present participle trouting, simple past and past participle trouted)

1. (Internet chat) To (figuratively) slap someone with a slimy, stinky, wet trout; to admonish jocularly.

• Routt, Tutor, tutor