# trout

> English word · Noun · IPA /tɹaʊt/ · frequency rank #9,974

## Definitions
1. Any of several species of fish in Salmonidae, closely related to salmon, and distinguished by spawning more than once.
2. An objectionable elderly woman.

## Etymology
From Middle English troute, troughte, trught, trouȝt, trouhte, partly from Old English truht (“trout”), and partly from Old French truite; both from Late Latin tructa, perhaps from Ancient Greek τρώκτης (trṓktēs, “nibbler”), from τρώγω (trṓgō, “I gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, to turn”). The Internet verb sense originated on BBSes of the 1980s, probably from Monty Python's The Fish-Slapping Dance (1972), though that sketch involved a halibut.

## Easily confused with
- **tru** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-tru)
- **tut** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-tut)
- **true** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-true)
- **Troy** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-troy)
- **trust** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-trust)
- **truth** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-truth)
- **trove** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-trove)
- **tryst** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-tryst)
- **tryout** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-tryout)
- **turnout** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trout-vs-turnout)
- **tot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tot-vs-trout)
- **tour** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tour-vs-trout)
- **thou** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/thou-vs-trout)
- **trot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/trot-vs-trout)
- **tout** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tout-vs-trout)
- **tort** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tort-vs-trout)
- **toot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/toot-vs-trout)
- **taut** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/taut-vs-trout)
- **thot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/thot-vs-trout)
- **treat** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/treat-vs-trout)

## Common misspellings (7)
`rtout`, `torut`, `trotu`, `troutt`, `trrout`, `truot`, `ttrout`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/trout