verb (used without object)
- to solicit business, employment, votes, or the like, importunately.
- Horse Racing. to act as a tout.
verb (used with object)
- to solicit support for importunately.
- to describe or advertise boastfully; publicize or promote; praise extravagantly: a highly touted nightclub.
- Horse Racing.
- to provide information on (a horse) running in a particular race, especially for a fee.
- to spy on (a horse in training) in order to gain information for the purpose of betting.
- to watch; spy on.
noun
- a person who solicits business, employment, support, or the like, importunately.
- Horse Racing.
- a person who gives information on a horse, especially for a fee.
- Chiefly British.a person who spies on a horse in training for the purpose of betting.
- British. a ticket scalper.
verb
- to solicit (business, customers, etc) or hawk (merchandise), esp in a brazen way
- (intr)
- to spy on racehorses being trained in order to obtain information for betting purposes
- to sell, or attempt to sell, such information or to take bets, esp in public places
- (tr) informal to recommend flatteringly or excessively
noun
-
- a person who spies on racehorses so as to obtain betting information to sell
- a person who sells information obtained by such spying
- a person who solicits business in a brazen way
- Also called: ticket tout a person who sells tickets unofficially for a heavily booked sporting event, concert, etc, at greatly inflated prices
- Ulster a police informer
1700, thieves’ cant, “to act as a lookout, spy on,” from Middle English tuten “to peep, peer,” probably from a variant of Old English totian “to stick out, peep, peer,” from Proto-Germanic *tut- “project” (cf. Dutch tuit “sprout, snout,” Middle Dutch tute “nipple, pap,” Middle Low German tute “horn, funnel,” Old Norse tota “teat, toe of a shoe”). The sense developed to “look out for jobs, votes, etc., to try to get them” (1731), then “praise highly” (1920). Related: Touted; touting.