putter

American professional golfer Eric Axley with a putter (etymology 3, sense 1)

Alteration of potter.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: pŭt'ə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtɚ/, /-ɾɚ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: put‧ter

putter (third-person singular simple present putters, present participle puttering, simple past and past participle puttered)

1. (intransitive) To be active, but not excessively busy, at a task or a series of tasks.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 304–305:

     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 and commenced to putter with the lock.

put +‎ -er.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: po͝ot'ə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈpʊtə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʊtɚ/, /-ɾɚ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊtə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: putt‧er

putter (plural putters)

1. One who puts or places.

   Coordinate term: puttee

   • 1995, Leonard Shengold, Delusions of Everyday Life, page 39:

     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.

   • 2012, Anetta Kopecka, Bhuvana Narasimhan, Events of Putting and Taking: A Crosslinguistic Perspective, page 55:

     […] 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 location).

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

• (one who puts or places): putter-on, putter up, shot-putter

From putt +‎ -er.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: pŭt'ə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtɚ/, /-ɾɚ/
• Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: putt‧er

putter (plural putters)

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

Onomatopoeic.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: pŭt'ə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌtɚ/, /-ɾɚ/
• Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: put‧ter

putter (third-person singular simple present putters, present participle puttering, simple past and past participle puttered)

1. (intransitive) To produce intermittent bursts of sound in the course of operating.
   • 2010, Pat Kelleher, “‘Some Corner of a Foreign Field …’”, in Black Hand Gang (No Man’s World), Osney Mead, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Abaddon Books, →ISBN:

     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 June 14, Dan Newton, The Wildcat, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2017 March, Jennifer S. Holland, “For These Monkeys, It’s a Fight for Survival”, in National Geographic‎, archived from the original on 3 May 2017:

     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 back to see him swagger into the middle of the path to watch me go.

   • 2019 May 15, Olga Khazan, “What Happens When You Always Wear Headphones”, in The Atlantic‎:

     My boyfriend, the cello owner, makes little noises while he putters around, which distracts me from reading my 20,000-word long-form articles about Iraq. So I noise-cancel him too.

• putter on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• putter (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Pruett

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʏ.tər/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: put‧ter
• Rhymes: -ʏtər

From putten (“to draw water”) +‎ -er.

putter m (plural putters, diminutive puttertje n)

1. A European goldfinch, Eurasian goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis).

   Synonym: distelvink

• putter on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl

Borrowed from English putter. Equivalent to putten +‎ -er.

putter m (plural putters)

1. (golf) A putter, a golf club used to putt.

• golfclub (gereedschap) on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl

Borrowed from English putter.

• IPA^(key): /pœ.tœʁ/

putter m (plural putters)

1. putter (golf club)

From English putt +‎ -er.

• IPA^(key): /pœ.te/

putter

1. (golf) to putt

• “putter”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

putter

1. present of putte

Deverbal from puttra.

putter n

1. a sound like boiling water
2. (by extension) simmering, boiling
3. puttering, "putter" (short, dull, quickly repeating noises (from an engine))

Borrowed from English putter.

putter c

1. (golf) a putter (club)

• driver

• putter in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• putter in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• putter in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

• Audio

  (file)

putter f

1. butter