putter

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English[edit]

WOTD – 10 December 2017

Etymology 1[edit]

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

Alteration of potter.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

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.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

put +‎ -er.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

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.
Derived terms[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From putt +‎ -er.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

putter (plural putters)

  2. (golf) A golf club specifically intended for a putt.
  3. (golf) A person who is taking a putt or putting.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 4[edit]

Onomatopoeic.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

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[1], 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[2]:
      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.
Translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Carduelis carduelis in Nederlandsche vogelen, 1770-1829

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From putten (“to draw water”) +‎ -er.

Noun[edit]

putter m (plural putters, diminutive puttertje n)

  1. A European goldfinch, Eurasian goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis).
    Synonym: distelvink

Further reading[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

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

Noun[edit]

putter m (plural putters)

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

Further reading[edit]

French[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from English putter.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

putter m (plural putters)

  1. putter (golf club)

Etymology 2[edit]

From English putt +‎ -er.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

putter

  1. (golf) to putt
Conjugation[edit]
Conjugation of putter (see also Appendix:French verbs)
infinitive simple putter
compound avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1 simple puttant
/pœ.tɑ̃/
compound ayant + past participle
past participle putté
/pœ.te/
singular plural
first second third first second third
indicative je (j’) tu il, elle, on nous vous ils, elles
(simple
tenses) 		present putte
/pœt/ 		puttes
/pœt/ 		putte
/pœt/ 		puttons
/pœ.tɔ̃/ 		puttez
/pœ.te/ 		puttent
/pœt/
imperfect puttais
/pœ.tɛ/ 		puttais
/pœ.tɛ/ 		puttait
/pœ.tɛ/ 		puttions
/pœ.tjɔ̃/ 		puttiez
/pœ.tje/ 		puttaient
/pœ.tɛ/
past historic2 puttai
/pœ.te/ 		puttas
/pœ.ta/ 		putta
/pœ.ta/ 		puttâmes
/pœ.tam/ 		puttâtes
/pœ.tat/ 		puttèrent
/pœ.tɛʁ/
future putterai
/pœ.tʁe/ 		putteras
/pœ.tʁa/ 		puttera
/pœ.tʁa/ 		putterons
/pœ.tʁɔ̃/ 		putterez
/pœ.tʁe/ 		putteront
/pœ.tʁɔ̃/
conditional putterais
/pœ.tʁɛ/ 		putterais
/pœ.tʁɛ/ 		putterait
/pœ.tʁɛ/ 		putterions
/pœ.tə.ʁjɔ̃/ 		putteriez
/pœ.tə.ʁje/ 		putteraient
/pœ.tʁɛ/
(compound
tenses) 		present perfect present indicative of avoir + past participle
pluperfect imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
past anterior2 past historic of avoir + past participle
future perfect future of avoir + past participle
conditional perfect conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive que je (j’) que tu qu’il, qu’elle que nous que vous qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple
tenses) 		present putte
/pœt/ 		puttes
/pœt/ 		putte
/pœt/ 		puttions
/pœ.tjɔ̃/ 		puttiez
/pœ.tje/ 		puttent
/pœt/
imperfect2 puttasse
/pœ.tas/ 		puttasses
/pœ.tas/ 		puttât
/pœ.ta/ 		puttassions
/pœ.ta.sjɔ̃/ 		puttassiez
/pœ.ta.sje/ 		puttassent
/pœ.tas/
(compound
tenses) 		past present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
pluperfect2 imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative – tu – nous vous –
simple — putte
/pœt/ 		— puttons
/pœ.tɔ̃/ 		puttez
/pœ.te/ 		—
compound — simple imperative of avoir + past participle — simple imperative of avoir + past participle simple imperative of avoir + past participle —
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way:
  • past historic → present perfect
  • past anterior → pluperfect
  • imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive
  • pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive

(Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Further reading[edit]

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Verb[edit]

putter

  1. present of putte

Swedish[edit]

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia sv

Etymology 1[edit]

Deverbal from puttra.

Noun[edit]

putter n

  1. a sound like boiling water
  2. (by extension) simmering, boiling
  3. puttering, "putter" (short, dull, quickly repeating noises (from an engine))
Declension[edit]
Declension of putter 
Uncountable
Indefinite Definite
Nominative putter puttret — —
Genitive putters puttrets — —

Etymology 2[edit]

Borrowed from English putter.

Noun[edit]

putter c

  1. (golf) a putter (club)
Declension[edit]
Declension of putter 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative putter puttern putters, puttrar puttrarna
Genitive putters putterns putters, puttrars puttrarnas
See also[edit]

References[edit]

Vilamovian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

putter f

  1. butter
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