tout
pronunciation
How to pronounce tout in British English:
UK [taʊt]
How to pronounce tout in American English:
US [taʊt]
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- Noun:
- someone who buys tickets to an event in order to resell them at a profit
- someone who advertises for customers in an especially brazen way
- one who sells advice about gambling or speculation (especially at the racetrack)
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- Verb:
- advertize in strongly positive terms
- show off
Word Origin
- tout
- tout: [14] The etymological notion underlying tout is of ‘sticking out, projecting’. It goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *tūt- ‘project’, whose other descendants include Dutch tuit ‘spout’. It is assumed to have produced an Old English *tūtian, but it does not turn up in the written record until the Middle English period, by which time the notion of ‘poking out’ had moved on to ‘peeking’ or ‘peeping’. It progressed further to ‘spy on’, but the modern ‘look for business’ did not emerge until the 18th century.
- tout (v.)
- 1700, thieves' cant, "to act as a lookout, spy on," from Middle English tuten "to peep, peer," probably from a variant of Old English totian "to stick out, peep, peer," from Proto-Germanic *tut- "project" (cognates: Dutch tuit "sprout, snout," Middle Dutch tute "nipple, pap," Middle Low German tute "horn, funnel," Old Norse tota "teat, toe of a shoe"). The sense developed to "look out for jobs, votes, customers, etc., to try to get them" (1731), then "praise highly in an attempt to sell" (1920). Related: Touted; touting.
Example
- 1. Marketers are eager to use fast-growing networks to tout their products .
- 2. The internet simply provides too many alternative opportunities to tout products .
- 3. Firms everywhere like to tout their digital innovations , and boast of having " first-mover advantage " .
- 4. Barack obama went to wall street on the first anniversary of the collapse of lehman brothers to tout his blueprint for overhauling america 's financial regulatory system .
- 5. Afghan officials have been keen to tout the country 's resources including the vast hajigak iron ore deposit that has attracted interest from mainly indian companies .