tout
Americanverb (used without object)
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touts,
present (3rd person singular)
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touted,
past participle, past
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touting
present participle
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to persistently solicit business, employment, votes, or the like.
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Horse Racing. to act as a tout.
verb (used with object)
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touts,
present (3rd person singular)
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touted,
past participle, past
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touting
present participle
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to persistently solicit support for.
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to describe or advertise boastfully; publicize or promote; praise extravagantly.
a highly touted nightclub.
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Horse Racing.
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to provide information on (a horse) running in a particular race, especially for a fee.
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to spy on (a horse in training) in order to gain information for the purpose of betting.
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to watch; spy on.
noun
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touts
plural
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a person who persistently solicits business, employment, support, or the like.
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Horse Racing.
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a person who gives information on a horse, especially for a fee.
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Chiefly British. a person who spies on a horse in training for the purpose of betting.
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British. a ticket scalper.
verb
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to solicit (business, customers, etc) or hawk (merchandise), esp in a brazen way
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(intr)
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to spy on racehorses being trained in order to obtain information for betting purposes
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to sell, or attempt to sell, such information or to take bets, esp in public places
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informal (tr) to recommend flatteringly or excessively
noun
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a person who spies on racehorses so as to obtain betting information to sell
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a person who sells information obtained by such spying
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a person who solicits business in a brazen way
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Also called: ticket tout. a person who sells tickets unofficially for a heavily booked sporting event, concert, etc, at greatly inflated prices
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a police informer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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toutsimple
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toutssimple
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have toutedperfect
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has toutedperfect
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am toutingprogressive
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are toutingprogressive
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is toutingprogressive
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have been toutingperfect progressive
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has been toutingperfect progressive
Past
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toutedsimple
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had toutedperfect
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was toutingprogressive
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were toutingprogressive
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had been toutingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tout
First recorded in 1350–1400; from Middle English tuten “to look out, peer”; probably akin to Old English tōtian “to peep out”
Explanation
To tout means to praise, boast, or brag about. If you like to tout your skill as a skier, you tell people you can go down expert-level hills. Sometimes parents will get into bragging wars about their children, each touting the accomplishments of his or her child. Sometimes the word means more of "to claim." The company touted the lotion as a solution to wrinkles. Broccoli has been touted as the cancer-fighting vegetable. In England, a tout is a person who gives advice about gambling. If you're looking to play some money on the ponies, go see the tout who hangs out at Jackie’s bar for a tip.
Vocabulary lists containing tout
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "T"
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This Week In Words: April 12–18, 2020
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Tech companies and utilities have said their commitments in states from Louisiana to Indiana will save consumers billions of dollars and tout the tax dollars data centers generate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
As the nation became the dominant form of political organization in the 19th century, some countries started to tout their long civilizational history as part of their identity.
From Slate ● Jul. 4, 2026
As much as the developers behind this technology tout its ability to bring users closer together, AI chatbots merely fuel our isolation.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
Financial advisers often tout the importance of estate planning: having a will, setting up trusts if necessary, and organizing medical directives and powers of attorney.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
The skilled orator is out not necessarily to knock down his opponent’s case tout court—but to misrepresent his opponent’s case in such a way as to make it easier to attack.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
That’s when the department changed to the Howler, whose manufacturer touts its “deep, penetrating tones.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
On its website, the company touts its ability to transmit funds to China in four hours.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
Competitor Robinsons now touts "28 solar-powered malls", while Ayala has arrays atop 13.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
They regard that figure as "the tip of the iceberg" and believe around 10-15% of season tickets are controlled by touts.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Well-to-do people have very little idea of the number of firms that employ travelling canvassers and touts to hawk their wares from door to door in the mean streets.
From The Law and the Poor by Edward Abbott Parry
GM, in a statement, said vehicles made with North American labor and parts should receive preferential tariff treatment, while Ford touted its position as the country’s top vehicle manufacturer and employer of hourly auto workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
That same year, in a manifesto titled "Machines of Loving Grace", Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei touted the potential of AI to transform everything from healthcare to politics.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Over the past year, some of the coalition’s most prominent figures have touted a responsibility to pro-create.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
While the citywide number has increased, the number of homeless people living on the street in Raman’s district decreased by 49%, a fact she has touted as she challenges Bass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Indeed, rather like Michael Jackson in our own time, Mozart’s childhood had been forfeited to make way for a career as a freakishly talented boy prodigy to be touted around an adult world.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Maybe they can get tenure by embracing and touting these ideas and getting a citation from a Supreme Court justice, maybe even a majority opinion.
From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2026
Starbucks Korea caused an uproar this year when it launched a "Tank Day" promotion on May 18, touting a new line of capacious tumblers for its coffee beverages.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
He responded by touting the companies’ “overlap” and collaboration, before acknowledging that he can’t discuss corporate combinations on an earnings call and allowing Tesla’s general counsel to step in.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Adherents swear by cupping therapy as a way to manage muscle pain and detoxify, but more spas are touting it as the ideal postflight treatment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
In fact, the “bloodbath” school of criminology was touting exactly the opposite theory—that an increase in the teenage share of the population would produce a crop of superpredators who would lay the nation low.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
