the.com/rout

means A rout is a chaotic, overwhelming defeat — not a close loss but a total collapse where the losing side breaks and scatters.

from From Old French 'route,' meaning a troop or disorderly crowd, itself from Latin 'rupta' — the feminine past participle of 'rumpere,' to break. So the word literally means 'a breaking' — fitting, since a military rout was originally the moment a defeated army's formation shattered and soldiers fled in all directions. The sense of 'crushing defeat' grew straight out of that image of broken ranks.