putter

One who puts or places.

Noun

  1. One who puts or places.
    • He was a model of anal defensiveness: fastidious in his dress and appearance, a collector and putter of things in order, a classifier and labeler. - 1995, Leonard Shengold, Delusions of Everyday Life, page 39:
    • […] for example, Gleitman (1990:30), in support of her claim for universal alignments of syntax and semantics, argues for the universal naturalness of three arguments for 'put' verbs (a putter, a puttee, and a...

    Coordinate Terms: puttee

  2. A shot-putter.
  3. One who pushes the small wagons in a coal mine, to transport the coal mined by the getter.

Origin

Etymology tree English put English -er English putter From put + -er.

Forms

putters

Related

carter

Derived

putter-on putter up shot-putter

Noun golf, hobbies

  1. A golf club specifically intended for a putt.
  2. A person who is taking a putt or putting.

Origin

Etymology tree English putt Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzijos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English putter From putt + -er.

Forms

putters

Derived

Schenectady putter

Verb Entry 3

  1. To be active, but not excessively busy, at a task or a series of tasks.
    • We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket...

Origin

Alteration of potter.

Forms

putters puttering puttered

Derived

pony putter putter about putter around putterer putteringly

Verb Entry 4

  1. To produce intermittent bursts of sound in the course of operating.
    • By the time the engine had puttered and died Atkins and some of the others were out of the trenches and walking towards this new wonder machine. - 2010, Pat Kelleher, “‘Some Corner of a Foreign Field …’”, in Black Hand...
    • Timmy's dad drove an old blue truck that puttered and sputtered to get to the top of the mountain, that led to the valley, where … the WILDCAT waited. - 2010 June 14, Dan Newton, The Wildcat, Bloomington, Ind.:...
    • As I reluctantly left Tangkoko for the last time, bumping along the trail on a motorbike, Raoul, the alpha male who had smacked my leg, wandered out from among the trees. He was alone, and after I puttered by, I glanced...

Origin

Onomatopoeic.

Forms

putters puttering puttered