puppeteer
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of puppeteer
Explanation
A puppeteer is a person who works a puppet, making it move and appear to talk. A puppeteer might do this by putting her hand inside the puppet and moving its arms and head. Puppets come in many different shapes, sizes, and styles, and they all need at least one puppeteer to operate them. Marionettes are puppets with strings, attached to parts of their bodies, that are worked from overhead by puppeteers. Hand puppets are manipulated from below, and some giant puppets require several puppeteers to move their limbs and heads. The Middle English root word is popet, "doll," from the Latin word pupa, "doll or girl."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The marmalade-loving bear is portrayed by a puppet controlled by a two-person team: James Hameed, the remote puppeteer, who controls the expressions and delivers the voice, and Arti Shah, who embodies Paddington on stage.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
As Roderigo, whom Iago manipulates like a bored puppeteer idly pulling the strings, Daniel Velez is idiotically gullible.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
Bob Baker, founded in 1963 by its namesake puppeteer, now attracts more than 145,000 audience members per year, including about 20,000 students via school field trips.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
For James, who is the voice of Paddington and remote puppeteer, he said "being a massive gamer" helped him learn how to operate Paddington's facial expressions perfectly.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2026
The puppeteer had jerked them across the stage in twitchy rushes that had left him with nightmares for weeks.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
Knoll’s digital-effects team had the job of erasing all visual evidence of the puppeteers, including shadows.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
An animatronic puppet has been trotted out like a real-life celebrity in advance of the movie’s Friday opening, putting Grogu’s high-tech internal machinery—and the puppeteers operating it out of sight with remote controls—to the test.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Close-quarters scenes of Grogu tending to a wounded Mando demanded a surgical level of control from Scott and his fellow puppeteers to pull out the emotions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
No one knows better what the Muppets can or can’t do than their puppeteers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026
It was like two invisible puppeteers, standing stage left and stage right, were yanking on strings to lift up the corners of her mouth.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
