rout.

1. To defeat an opponent so thoroughly that resistance collapses or the defeated side withdraws in disorder.

2. A defeat so severe that the losing side is overwhelmed and may retreat in confusion.

3. Wild confusion or a disorganized retreat, especially among people fleeing after a defeat.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• rout an army
• rout the opposition
• rout a rival team

On the page

The home side routed its rivals before a stunned crowd.

The cavalry routed the remaining defenders before sunset.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated prose. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Verb: rout; routs; routed; routed; routing. Noun singular rout; plural routs. Confusion or retreat may also be uncountable. Commonness: moderately common (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Full dictionary entry directly read. Verb decisive/disastrous defeat or putting to flight; noun disastrous defeat and wild confusion/disordered retreat. Other noun crowd, disturbance, gathering and verb root/search, drive out, gouge and regional bellow uses exceed three slots. Regular routed/routing explicitly checked; route is a different word, not an alias. Individual usefulness checked for a precise literary, narrative, dialogue or critical function. Definitions and examples are original; commonness is an editorial estimate. Mood and intensity apply only to inherent qualities of the specific sense. Writing functions: overwhelming rather than narrow defeat, discipline collapsing during retreat. Third-person singular: routs.