workout
Americannoun
-
workouts
plural
-
a trial or practice session in athletics, as in running, boxing, or football.
-
a structured regime of physical exercise.
She goes to the gym for a workout twice a week.
-
any trial or practice session.
-
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:
Endless workout videos making impossible promises filled her feeds.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
A daily workout, and hitting golf balls on my Trackman video setup in the wine cellar.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
From pecs to decks, students in Nottingham are trying a new workout that turns a gym into a club night.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Dodgers players take part in an off-day workout on Saturday ahead of Game 1 of the NLCS.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026
Should I grab Simone’s workout towel, a facecloth, and lay it on my head like a doily at the center of a coffee table?
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
Rather than focusing exclusively on long workouts or ambitious fitness goals, people may benefit from finding small opportunities to move throughout the day.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026
Rather than saving all their workouts for the weekend, people may benefit from making movement a regular part of their daily routines.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026
Thybulle, along with Ziaire Williams and Adou Thiero, has been praised for how disruptive he has been during workouts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 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
He even liked it sometimes during the early morning workouts that were held twice a week before classes started inside the school gymnasium.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
