Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various freshwater or marine fishes having a large head, especially an eelpout or a bullhead.
  • intransitive verb To exhibit displeasure or disappointment; sulk.
  • intransitive verb To protrude the lips in an expression of displeasure or sulkiness.
  • intransitive verb To project or protrude.
  • intransitive verb To push out or protrude (the lips).
  • intransitive verb To utter or express with a pout.
  • noun A protrusion of the lips, especially as an expression of sullen discontent.
  • noun A fit of petulant sulkiness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fish or spear for pouts.
  • noun One of several fishes which have swollen or inflated parts.
  • noun An eel-pout.
  • noun The bib or blens, Gadus luscus; the whiting-cod: more fully called whiting-pout.
  • noun In the United States, a kind of catfish, Amiurus catus, and others of this genus; a horn-pout.
  • To thrust out the lips, as in displeasure or sullenness; hence, to look sullen.
  • To swell out; be plump and prominent: as, pouting lips; pouting clusters of grapes.
  • To puff out or swell up the breast, as a pigeon. See pouter, 2.
  • To thrust out; protrude.
  • noun A protrusion of the lips as in pouting; hence, a fit of sullenness or displeasure: as, she has the pouts.
  • noun A pouter pigeon. See pouter, 2.
  • noun A young fowl or bird: same as poult.
  • noun Figuratively, a young girl; a sweetheart.
  • To go gunning for young grouse or partridges.
  • noun In coal-mining, a tool used for knocking out timbers in the workings.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The young of some birds, as grouse; a young fowl.
  • intransitive verb Scot. To shoot pouts.
  • noun A sullen protrusion of the lips; a fit of sullenness.
  • intransitive verb To thrust out the lips, as in sullenness or displeasure; hence, to look sullen.
  • intransitive verb To protrude.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The European whiting pout or bib.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Eelpout.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Bullhead (b).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative form of poult.
  • verb Scotland To shoot poults.
  • noun One's facial expression when pouting.
  • noun A fit of sulking or sullenness.
  • verb intransitive To push out one's lips.
  • verb intransitive To be or pretend to be ill-tempered; to sulk.
  • verb transitive To say while pouting.
  • noun rare Shortened name of various fishes such as the hornpout (Ameiurus nebulosus, the brown bullhead), the pouting (Trisopterus luscus) and the eelpouts (Zoarcidae).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make a sad face and thrust out one's lower lip
  • noun a disdainful grimace
  • noun catfish common in eastern United States
  • noun marine eellike mostly bottom-dwelling fishes of northern seas
  • verb be in a huff and display one's displeasure

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English *poute, from Old English -pūte (as in ǣlepūte, eelpout).]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English pouten, perhaps of Scandinavian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English pouten, probably from Scandinavian (compare Norwegian pute ("pillow, cushion"), Swedish dial. puta ("to be puffed out"), Danish pude ("pillow, cushion")), from Proto-Germanic *pūto (“swollen”) (compare English eelpout, Dutch puit, Low German puddig ("inflated")), from Proto-Indo-European *bu- (“to swell”) (compare Sanskrit bubble (budbuda)).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English pūte as in aelepūte, from Indo-European root beu having a meaning associated with the notion "to swell".

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pout.

Examples

  • Being from minnesota eel pout is a celebrated thing but dont forget that leech lake has some amazing walleye fishing

    Trash-Fish Bash: Photos from Minnesota's Eel Pout Festival 2009

  • Being from minnesota eel pout is a celebrated thing but dont forget that leech lake has some amazing walleye fishing

    Trash-Fish Bash: Photos from Minnesota's Eel Pout Festival 2009

  • Update, 5/26: "That Jolie can act as well as pout is finally proved by this French-accented turn, moving and modulated, as the woman whose husband became roadkill on the roadmap to a never-never Middle East peace process," writes Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times.

    GreenCine Daily: Cannes. A Mighty Heart. 2007

  • If you're a tabloid fixture whose worth depends largely on how many photos are taken of you in a given day, it's a time to pose and pout, which is exactly what Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton did at the Beverly Hilton Sunday night.

    ABC News: Top Stories 2012

  • Of course, any waitress who had that kind of pout and those kind of shoes would find herself out on the street, pronto.

    I like this, but ... - A Dress A Day 2009

  • She alternates dizzily between childish giddiness and a sort of stoic, pursed-lips silence her interpretation of the model "pout" she sees on TV.

    Archive 2008-01-01 2008

  • Pouting kids or grown women who "pout" not because of any emotion but out of the delusion that they are making their lips more attractive.

    Archive 2006-06-01 Ann Althouse 2006

  • Evelyn was a good deal out of sorts, said Hugh, intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body

    Mrs. Dalloway 2003

  • She had a distinct cupid's-bow mouth which made her especially attractive, for it gave her the kind of pout that made men look twice.

    Centennial Michener, James 1974

  • The mouth, which, when she smiled, looked like a sword wound on the flank of a horse, now, when the "pout" is complete, looks like a crumpled concertina.

    Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) Letters from the Front A. G. Hales

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.