louter

From Middle Dutch louter, variant of luyter, lûter, lutter, from Old Dutch *lūtir, luttir, from Proto-Germanic *hlūtraz. The -ou- is probably due to influence by late Middle High German lauter, older lūter, from Old High German hlūter, from the same Germanic source. Compare modern German lauter.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɑu̯tər/

• Audio

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louter (comparative louterder, superlative louterst)

1. (inflected) pure

   het louterste goud ― the purest gold

2. (invariable) a lot of; a bunch of

   Het zijn louter leugens. ― It’s a bunch of lies.

   Er zijn louter regels die we moeten volgen. ― There are a lot of rules we must follow.

• Sense 2 is originally a use of the adverb “purely” and is sometimes still interpretable as such. In the second example sentence, however, this is clearly not the case.

louter

1. purely

• louteren