workout
Americannoun
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workouts
plural
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a trial or practice session in athletics, as in running, boxing, or football.
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a structured regime of physical exercise.
She goes to the gym for a workout twice a week.
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any trial or practice session.
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an act or instance of working something out.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of workout
First recorded in 1890–95; noun use of verb phrase work out
Explanation
A workout is an exercise session. If you hope to join your school's track team, you'd better be prepared for regular workouts. If you do yoga, lift weights, or run with your dog, you can call each of these activities a workout. When it's a verb, workout becomes two separate words: work out. So you can either say "I work out three days a week" or "I usually do three workouts a week." When this noun first appeared around the turn of the 20th century, it referred specifically to a practice boxing match.
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:
All indications from general manager Brandon Gomes and manager Dave Roberts in video conference calls before the Dodgers’ closed workout Tuesday were that Ohtani was feeling good physically.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
The new cable got a workout almost immediately.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Is there anything new in your workout regimen that is paying off for you?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Give your brain a workout: What’s an 11-letter “Enya hit with the repeated lyric ‘Sail away, sail away, sail away’ ”?
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2026
Grandma was staying at our house to keep an eye on me while they were gone, so after Joey’s workout she brought Joey and Zed back to my house.
From "Lawn Boy Returns" by Gary Paulsen
The difference, Roberts said, is how encouraged the manager was by Freeman’s workouts this week.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley talked about modifying his workouts, taking inspiration from Kobe Bryant and his animal-themed meditation technique.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
The gut-busting workouts imposed by Sumrall and Whitt centered on four lifts: power clean, bench, squat and dead lift.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
This is one of thousands of videos on TikTok and Instagram suggesting that people change their workouts depending on where they are in their menstrual cycles - something known as 'cycle-syncing'.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Last year, Justin would at least take the bus with me whenever he didn’t have practice or workouts.
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
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.
