stout: [14] Stout originally meant ‘proud, brave’. It came via Anglo-Norman stout from a prehistoric West Germanic *stult- (source also of German stolz ‘proud’), which may have been related to the ancestor of English stilt. The notion of ‘braveness’ led on to that of ‘physical strength’ and ‘powerful physique’, but the word did not go downhill to ‘fat’ until the end of the 18th century. The application to a sort of strong beer dates from the 17th century. => stilt[stout etymology, stout origin, 英语词源]