lout

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 8, 2016 is: lout • \LOUT\  • noun : an awkward brutish person Examples: To get away from the obnoxious louts making noise in the restaurant, Jared and Fiona asked the waiter if they could be moved to another table. "Leaf blowers kick a lot of dust up. Often, after I've just washed my car I will drive past some lout who is blowing crud directly at my passenger door." — Paul Mulshine, The Newark Star Ledger, 2 June 2016 Did you know? Lout belongs to the large group of words we use to indicate an undesirable person, a boor, a bumpkin, a dolt, a clod. We've used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. As early as the 800s, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning "to bow in respect." No one is quite sure how the verb sense developed into a noun meaning "a brutish person." Perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over time to the idea that the person was personally low and awkward as well. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.