gout
/ɡaʊt/ noun, verb
Forms gouts gouting gouted gowt
- noun (uncountable, pathology) An extremely painful inflammation of joints, especially of the big toe, caused by a metabolic defect resulting in the accumulation of uric acid in the blood and the deposition of urates around the joints.
- noun (usually followed by of) A drop; a spurt or splotch.
- noun (rare) A disease of wheat and cornstalks, caused by insect larvae.
- verb (intransitive) To spurt.
- noun (obsolete) Taste; relish.
Synonyms
crystalline arthritis gouty arthritis urarthritis rich man's disease
Etymology
From Middle English goute, from Old French gote, gute, from Latin gutta (“drop”). Compare Spanish gota (“drop, droplet”). Doublet of goutte and gutta.
The sense shift derived from humorism and "the notion of the 'dropping' of a morbid material from the blood in and around the joints".
Borrowed from French goût.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A drop; a clot or coagulation.
- noun A constitutional disease, occurring by paroxysms. It constists in an inflammation of the fibrous and ligamentous parts of the joints, and almost always attacks first the great toe, next the smaller joints, after which, it may attack the greater articulations.
- noun Taste; relish.
Etymology [F. goutte a drop, the gout, the disease being considered as a defluxion, fr. L. gutta drop.]
Etymology [F., fr. L. gustus taste. See Gusto.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gout”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details