A decisive defeat where one side is completely beaten and scattered, or to defeat someone decisively.
From Old French 'route' (a crowd, a breaking up), related to Latin 'rupta' (broken). The military sense emerged in the 1500s to describe armies broken and fleeing in disorder.
The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 was such a devastating rout that English archers killed so many French soldiers the bodies piled up faster than they could be removed, creating literal walls of corpses on the battlefield!
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