Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To gush forth in a rapid stream or in spurts.
  • intransitive verb To discharge a liquid or other substance continuously or in spurts.
  • intransitive verb To speak in a wordy, dull, or pompous manner.
  • intransitive verb To discharge (a flowing or spurting liquid); release.
  • intransitive verb To utter in a wordy, dull, or pompous manner.
  • intransitive verb Chiefly British To pawn.
  • noun A tube, lip, or hole through which liquid is released or discharged.
  • noun A continuous stream of liquid.
  • noun The burst of spray from the blowhole of a whale.
  • noun Chiefly British A pawnshop.
  • idiom (up the spout) Pawned.
  • idiom (up the spout) In difficulty.
  • idiom (up the spout) Pregnant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To issue with force, as a liquid through a narrow orifice, or from a spout; spurt: as, blood spouts from an artery.
  • To discharge a fluid in a jet or continuous stream; send out liquid as from a spout or nozle; specifically, to blow, as a whale.
  • To speak volubly and oratorically; talk or recite in a declamatory manner, especially in public: speechify.
  • To pour out in a jet and with some force; throw out as through a spout or pipe: as, an elephant spouts water from his trunk.
  • To cause to spurt or gush out.
  • To utter volubly or grandiloquently.
  • To pawn; pledge. See spout, n., 2.
  • To furnish or provide with a spout, in any sense: as, to spout a roof; to spout a tea-kettle.
  • noun In turpentine-making, the projection of the lower gutter beyond the center of the face. See gutter, 9.
  • noun A narrow part of a river, with a swift current.
  • noun A pipe, tube, or trough through which a liquid is poured, and which serves to guide its flow.
  • noun A lift or shoot in a pawnbroker's shop; hence, vulgarly, the shop itself.
  • noun A continuous stream of fluid matter issuing, actually or seemingly, from a pipe or nozle; a jet or column, as of water.
  • noun Specifically— A waterspout.
  • noun The column of spray or vapor emitted from the spout-hole of a whale during the act of expiration, resembling the escape of steam from a valve.
  • noun The spout-hole of a whale.
  • noun A short underground passage connecting a main road with an air-head: a term used in the thick coal-workings of South Staffordshire, England.

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

  • intransitive verb To issue with violence, or in a jet, as a liquid through a narrow orifice, or from a spout.
  • intransitive verb To eject water or liquid in a jet.
  • intransitive verb To utter a speech, especially in a pompous manner.
  • noun That through which anything spouts; a discharging lip, pipe, or orifice; a tube, pipe, or conductor of any kind through which a liquid is poured, or by which it is conveyed in a stream from one place to another
  • noun A trough for conducting grain, flour, etc., into a receptacle.
  • noun A discharge or jet of water or other liquid, esp. when rising in a column; also, a waterspout.
  • noun [Cant] to pawn or pledge at a pawnbroker's; -- in allusion to the spout up which the pawnbroker sent the ticketed articles.
  • transitive verb To throw out forcibly and abundantly, as liquids through an orifice or a pipe; to eject in a jet.
  • transitive verb To utter magniloquently; to recite in an oratorical or pompous manner.
  • transitive verb Cant To pawn; to pledge.

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

  • noun a tube or lip through which liquid is poured or discharged
  • noun a stream of liquid
  • noun the mixture of air and water thrown up from the blowhole of a whale
  • verb to gush forth in a stream
  • verb to speak tediously

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

  • verb gush forth in a sudden stream or jet
  • noun an opening that allows the passage of liquids or grain
  • verb talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner

Etymologies

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

[Middle English spouten, ultimately of imitative origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Swedish spruta a squirt, a syringe.

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  • Etymology online:

    spout (n.)

    late 14c., from spout (v.). Cognate with Middle Dutch spoit, North Frisian spütj. It was the slang term for the lift in a pawnbroker's shop, the device which took up articles for storage, hence figurative phrase up the spout "lost, hopeless, gone beyond recall" (1812).

    May 5, 2018