grout
/ɡɹaʊt/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms grouts grouting grouted grewt groute grut
- noun A thin mortar used to fill the gaps between tiles and cavities in masonry.
- noun (archaic) Coarse meal; groats.
- noun (archaic, chiefly in the plural) Dregs, sediment.
- noun (UK, obsolete) A kind of beer or ale.
- verb (transitive) To insert mortar between tiles. “I spent the whole afternoon grouting the kitchen floor.”
- verb (transitive) To affix with mortar.
- proper noun A surname.
Etymology
From Middle English growte, grut, from Old English grūt (“dregs; coarse meal”), from Proto-West Germanic *grūt, from Proto-Germanic *grūtą (compare Dutch gruit (“dregs”), German Grauß, Norwegian grut (“ground”)), lengthening of Proto-Germanic *grutą, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to grind, rub”). Related to grit.
English surname, from the noun grout.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Coarse meal; ground malt; pl. groats.
- noun Formerly, a kind of beer or ale. [Eng.]
- verb To fill up or finish with grout, as the joints between stones.
Etymology [AS. grut; akin to grytt, G. grütze, griess, Icel. grautr, Lith. grudas corn, kernel, and Z. groats.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “grout”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details