tout
(tout)v. tout·ed, tout·ing, touts
v.tr.
1. To promote or praise energetically; publicize: "For every study touting the benefits of hormone therapy, another warns of the risks" (Yanick Rice Lamb).
2. To solicit or importune: street vendors who were touting pedestrians.
3. Chiefly British To obtain or sell information on (a racehorse or stable) for the guidance of bettors.
v.intr.
1. To solicit customers, votes, or patronage, especially in a brazen way.
2. Chiefly British To obtain and deal in information on racehorses.
n.
1. One who solicits customers brazenly or persistently: "The administration of the nation's literary affairs falls naturally into the hands of touts and thieves" (Lewis H. Lapham).
2. Chiefly British One who obtains information on racehorses and their prospects and sells it to bettors.
3. Chiefly Scots and Irish Slang One who informs against others; an informer.
[Early Modern English, to be on the lookout for (customers, information, etc.), from Middle English tuten, to peer; akin to Old English tōtian, to protrude, peep out.]
tout′er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
tout•er
(ˈtaʊ tər)n.
a tout.
[1745–55]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
touter - someone who advertises for customers in an especially brazen way