strut

Etymology 1

The verb is derived from Middle English strouten, struten (“to bulge, swell; to protrude, stick out; to bluster, threaten; to object forcefully; to create a disturbance; to fight; to display one's clothes in a proud or vain manner”) [and other forms], from Old English strūtian (“to project out; stand out stiffly; to exert oneself, struggle”), from Proto-Germanic *strūtōną, *strūtijaną (“to be puffed up, swell”), from Proto-Indo-European *streudʰ- (“rigid, stiff”), from *(s)ter- (“firm; strong; rigid, stiff”). The English word is cognate with Danish strutte (“to bulge, bristle”), Low German strutt (“stiff”), Middle High German striuzen (“to bristle; to ruffle”) (modern German strotzen (“to bristle up”), sträußen (obsolete, except in Alemannic)); and compare Gothic 𐌸𐍂𐌿𐍄𐍃𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌻 (þrutsfill, “leprosy”), Old Norse þrútinn (“swollen”). The noun is derived from the verb. Noun sense 2 (“instrument for adjusting the pleats of a ruff”) appears to be due to a misreading of a 16th-century work which used the word stroout (strouted (“caused (something) to bulge, protrude, or swell; strutted”)).

verb

1. (intransitive) Of a peacock or other fowl: to stand or walk stiffly, with the tail erect and spread out.
   The pheasant strutteth about in the midst of flowers; / The turtle-dove cooeth, and the nightingale warbleth from the cypress. 1883, Ferdusī [i.e., Ferdowsi], “The Gardens of Afrasiab”, in S[amuel] Robinson, transl., Persian Poetry for English Readers: Being Specimens of Six of the Greatest Classical Poets of Persia: Ferdusī, Nizāmī, Sādī, Jelāl-ad-dīn Rūmī, Hāfiz, and Jāmī[…], [Glasgow]: […] [M‘Laren & Son] for private circulation, →OCLC, section IV (Miscellaneous Specimens of the “Shah-Namah”), page 93
   He thought that whenne Thanksgyving came he'd looke soe payle & thynne, / He colde avoid ye usual role ye Turkye strutteth inne. Deliberately written in an archaic style. 24 November 1887, “Ye Scheme of Ye Turkye Bold: Ytts Faylure”, in Life, volume X, number 256, New York, N.Y.: Published at the Life Office –[…], published 19 July 1883, →OCLC, page 288
2. (intransitive, by extension, also figurative) To walk haughtily or proudly with one's head held high.
   He strutted about the yard, thinking himself master of all he surveyed.
   … I trow it is enough to make a man forswear the very mother that bore him, and to wish that he had never had one, when one is cooped up in a gloomy hole like this, to watch a door within which strutteth a jackanapes too proud to speak civil to those that approach him. 1850, Thomas Cooper, chapter XX, in Captain Cobler; or, The Lincolnshire Rebellion: An Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII, London: J[ames] Watson,[…], →OCLC, page 191
   "With Mosaic cheers unglutted, / Stood he in this vast abode; / As thou struttest, so he strutted, / As thou crowest, so he crow'd— / He the well-beloved of Hansard, / Is he kin, sweet bird, to you?" / But the valiant bantam answer'd— / "Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo!" 1857 May, “[Lays of the Elections. By Various Rejected Contributors.] The Cock of the Hustings.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LXXXI, number CCCCXCIX (American edition, volume XLIV, number 5), New York, N.Y.: Published by the Leonard Scott & Co.,[…], →OCLC, page 632
   Hast thou nor shame, nor modesty, nor fear? / That thus thou struttest in the face of God, / Spreading thy peacock's feathers, with their gleam? 1867, Peter Macmorland, “A Preacher.—I. Sonnet.”, in Sabbath, an Ode: With Poems Suited to the Communion Season, 2nd edition, Edinburgh: H. Cameron,[…], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 87
   … I recognise the two Miss Boulters, the acknowledged queens of Welby society, each of whom has managed to secure a cavalier for escort; Margaret Watson flounces by with young Boulter, a stout, florid youth with an insinuating eye; Jo and Charlotte strut out together arm in arm with a funny imitation of their elders. 1888 September, [Amy Levy], “Griselda”, in Temple Bar: […] A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume LXXXIV, London: Richard Bentley & Son,[…]; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers; Paris: Galignani, →OCLC, chapter II (A Welby Festival), page 73
3. (transitive, by extension) To walk across or on (a stage or other place) haughtily or proudly.
   Taking you and your colleagues as the model of modern times, I should almost fear that the John Bull of former days was as different from the John Bull of the present time, as is a broad-shouldered, fearless Highlandman from the dapper cockney who struts the Park by the side of his fellow-milliner. 1827, S[olomon] Atkinson, The Effects of the New System of Free Trade upon Our Shipping, Colonies & Commerce, Exposed in a Letter to the Right Hon. W[illiam] Huskisson, President of the Board of Trade, London: James Ridgeway,[…], →OCLC, page 46
   The frantic father struts the stage, / And swells with true sublimity of rage / Against his son, who leads a wanton life, / And scorns the offer of a dowried wife. 1838, Horace, “Satire IV”, in David Hunter, transl., The Satires and Epistles of Horace, London: John W[illiam] Parker,[…], →OCLC, book I, lines 63–66, pages 20–21
   Still garbed in notions wont to gird / Minds in the reign of George the Third, / He strutteth an embodied tameness / In a sober suit of sameness. 1868, P. F. Roe, “Rhythmical Etchings of Character. No. III. Thomas Trite, Esquire.”, in Poems: Characteristic, Itinerary, and Miscellaneous, London: John Camden Hotten,[…], →OCLC, page 51
4. (intransitive, obsolete) Often followed by out: to protuberate or stick out due to being full or swollen; to bulge, to swell.
   Sometimes [the clitoris] groweth to such a length that it hangeth without the cleft like a mans member, especially when it is fretted with the touch of the cloaths, and so strutteth and groweth to a rigiditie as doth the yarde [penis] of a man. 1631, Helkiah Crooke, Μικροκοσμογραφια [Mikrokosmographia]. A Description of the Body of Man.[…], 2nd edition, London: […] Thomas and Richard Cotes, and are to be sold by Michael Sparke,[…], →OCLC; quoted in Valerie Traub, “The (In)Significance of ‘Lesbian’ Desire in Early Modern England”, in Jonathan Goldberg, editor, Queering the Renaissance, Durham, N.C., London: Duke University Press, 1994, page 66
   If the right breaſt ſwell and ſtrut out the Boy is well, if it flag it is a ſign of miſcarriage, judge the ſame of the Girle by the left breaſt, when it is ſunk, or round and hard, the firſt ſignifies abortion to be near, the other health and ſafety both of the Mother and the Child. 1671, Jane Sharp, “Of the Sympathy between the Womb and Other Parts, and How It is Wrought upon by Them”, in The Midwives Book. Or The Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered.[…], London: […] Simon Miller,[…], →OCLC, book II, page 132
   [T]hey cut the tree where they see the bark to be fullest of liquor, and whereas they perceive it to be thinnest and strut out most. [Quoting Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, book XII, chapter 14.] 1 April 1869, George Birdwood, “III. On the Genus Boswellia, with Descriptions and Figures of Three New Species.[…]”, in The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, volume XXVII, 1st part, London: […] Taylor and Francis,[…]; and by Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer,[…], →OCLC, page 123
5. (transitive, obsolete) Often followed by out: to cause (something) to bulge, protrude, or swell.
   [H]e gains the glitt'ring prize, / And ſtruts the gaudy food of gazing eyes, / A thing—that oft his Footmen may deſpiſe. [1746?], One Thousand, Seven Hundred, and Forty-five. A Satiric Epistle after the Manner of Mr. [Alexander] Pope, London, Dublin: […] J. Kinneir,[…], and A. Long,[…], →OCLC, page 5

noun

1. (also figurative) A step or walk done stiffly and with the head held high, often due to haughtiness or pride; affected dignity in walking.
   Putting on his hat, and thrusting both hands into the pockets of his trousers, he marched with a nonchalant strut out of the room, … 1860 October 6 – 1861 July 6, Pierce Egan [the Younger], chapter LXXVI, in The Wonder of Kingswood Chace, London: E. & H. Bennett,[…], published [1890], →OCLC, page 418, column 2
2. (historical) An instrument for adjusting the pleats of a ruff.

Etymology 2

an airplane’s wing.]] The origin of sense 1 of the noun (“beam or rod providing support”) is unknown; it is probably ultimately from Proto-Germanic *strūtōną, *strūtijaną (“to be puffed up, swell”): see further at etymology 1. The English word is cognate with Icelandic strútur (“hood jutting out like a horn”), Low German strutt (“rigid, stiff”), Norwegian strut (“nozzle, spout”), Swedish strut (“paper cornet”). The verb is derived from sense 1 of the noun. Sense 2 of the noun (“act of strutting”) is derived from the verb: see above.

noun

1. (chiefly construction) A beam or rod providing support.
   This alteration will obviate the necessity for the injudicious iron struts which are now introduced between the backs of the columns and the face of the pilasters, and which, in a practical point of view, afford little or no advantage, except against a direct shock; and even in many such cases they have failed in that object; for in such of them as have been struck, permanent alteration of the strut has taken place, which now has the effect of holding those portions of the shaft with which they are connected out of their places. 26 August 1833, R. Macdonald Stephenson, Charles J. Blunt, “Blackfriars’ Bridge Repairs”, in The Mechanics’ Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette, volume XX, number 551, London: M. Salmon,[…], published 1 March 1834, →OCLC, page 358, column 2
   Replacing and Aligining Wing-tip Float Struts. Loosen the brace wires and stagger wires on the wing-tip float. Remove the bolts or pins from the strut fittings, both on the float and on the wing surface; then lift the strut out. Carefully replace the strut in a like manner. This is a very simple operation but care must be taken to align the strut with the one in the rear and the one opposite. 1919 July, M. E. Williams et al., “Seaplane No. 3, Seaplane No. 4 (Boat Type)”, in United States Navy Aviation Mechanics’ Training System for Plane Maintenance Force: Course Manual for Quartermasters’ (A) Course (Form MUL. 306—N. 500), New York, N.Y.: United States Navy Gas Engine School, Columbia University; Great Lakes, Ill.: United States Naval Training Station, →OCLC, part 2 (Technical Course), pages 587–588
   MacPherson struts are found attached to the front wheels of just about every front-drive car on the road and at the fronts of many rear-wheel-drive cars, as well. … The MacPherson strut is a single unit that contains the shock absorber and coil spring. In addition, the strut acts as the upper arm in a typical suspension. 1992 January, Don Chaikin, “Car Care: Saturday Mechanic: Replacing MacPherson Struts and Shocks”, in Joe Oldham, editor, Popular Mechanics, volume 169, number 1, New York, N.Y.: The Hearst Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 72 and 74
2. An act of strutting (“bracing or supporting (something) by a strut or struts (sense 1); attaching diagonally; bending at a sharp angle”); specifically, deviation (of the spoke of a wheel) from the normal position.

verb

1. (transitive, chiefly construction, also figurative) To brace or support">support (something) by a strut or struts; to hold (something) in place or strengthen by a diagonal, transverse, or upright support">support.
   Masonry flying arches strutting the retaining walls in Chorley cutting, Manchester-Blackpool line, L.M.S.R. 1939 November, “Pertinent Paragraphs”, in Railway Magazine, page 358, photo caption
2. (intransitive) To be attached diagonally or at a slant; also, to be bent at a sharp angle.

Etymology 3

Probably an archaic past participle of strut (“to (cause something to) bulge, protrude, or swell”), now replaced by strutted: see etymology 1.

adj

1. (obsolete) Swelling out due to being full; bulging, protuberant, swollen.
2. (Scotland, obsolete) Drunk, intoxicated; fou.