tout

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To solicit customers, votes, or patronage, especially in a brazen way.
2. v. To obtain and deal in information on racehorses.
3. v. To solicit or importune: street vendors who were touting pedestrians.
4. v. Chiefly British To obtain or sell information on (a racehorse or stable) for the guidance of bettors.
5. v. To promote or praise energetically; publicize: "For every study touting the benefits of hormone therapy, another warns of the risks” ( Yanick Rice Lamb).
6. n. Chiefly British One who obtains information on racehorses and their prospects and sells it to bettors.
7. n. 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).
8. n. Chiefly Scots and Irish Slang One who informs against others; an informer.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To look about; spy; specifically, in modern racing slang, to spy out the movements of race-horses at training.
2. To look about for customers; solicit custom, employment, or the like.
3. To follow.
4. n. Same as touter.
5. n. In horse-racing, a person who clandestinely watches the trials of race-horses at their training quarters and for a fee gives information for betting purposes.
6. n. In the game of solo, a play when one person takes or proposes to take all the tricks. Also touter.
7. n. The buttocks; the backside; the fundament.
8. To pout; be seized with a sudden fit of ill humor.
9. n. A pet; a huff; a fit of ill humor.
10. n. A fit or slight attack of illness.

Wiktionary

1. n. Someone advertising for customers in an aggressive way.
2. n. A person, at a racecourse, who offers supposedly inside information on which horse is likely to win
3. v. transitive To flaunt, to publicize/publicise; to boast or brag; to promote.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. Cant. Eng. To act as a tout. See 2d tout.
2. v. Prov. Eng. To ply or seek for customers.
3. v. Scot. & Dial. Eng. To look narrowly; spy.
4. v. Cant, Eng., Cant, U. S., Cant, U. S. To spy out the movements of race horses at their trials, or to get by stealth or other improper means the secrets of the stable, for betting purposes.
5. v. Cant, U. S. To act as a tout; to tout, or give a tip on, a race horse.
6. n. Cant. Eng. One who secretly watches race horses which are in course of training, to get information about their capabilities, for use in betting.
7. n. Cant, U. S. One who gives a tip on a race horses for an expected compensation, esp. in hopes of a share in any winnings; -- usually contemptuous.
8. n. colloq. One who solicits custom, as a runner for a hotel, cab, gambling place.
9. n. colloq. A spy for a smuggler, thief, or the like.
10. n. In the game of solo, a proposal to win all eight tricks.
11. v. To toot a horn.
12. v. Cant, Eng., Cant, U. S., Cant, U. S. To spy out information about, as a racing stable or horse.
13. v. Cant, U. S. To give a tip on (a race horse) to a better with the expectation of sharing in the latter's winnings.
14. n. obsolete The anus.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. someone who advertises for customers in an especially brazen way
2. n. one who sells advice about gambling or speculation (especially at the racetrack)
3. v. advertize in strongly positive terms
4. v. show off
5. n. someone who buys tickets to an event in order to resell them at a profit