put-put
Americannoun
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the sound made by a small internal-combustion engine or imitative of its operation.
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Informal. a small internal-combustion engine, or something, as a boat or model airplane, equipped with one.
the sound of distant put-puts on the lake.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a light chugging or popping sound, as made by a petrol engine
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a vehicle powered by an engine making such a sound
verb
Etymology
Origin of put-put
First recorded in 1900–05; imitative
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 put-put goes out and the battery is very low.
From Time Magazine Archive
Half a million Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki motor bikes put-put along South Viet Nam's roads, and little Sony radios are to be seen everywhere.
From Time Magazine Archive
The village generator, silent all day to save fuel, started to put-put, and 73 floodlights splashed light across the rocky fields.
From Time Magazine Archive
The gentle climate, only slightly exaggerated by Sir Walter, woos people from TV tube and typewriter to putter and put-put, field and stream.
From Time Magazine Archive
The boat containing the two rough men was no longer in sight, but finally there drifted down on the night wind the soft put-put of the motor.
From The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat How they sailed away, what happened on the voyage, and what was discovered by Grace Brooks Hill
To surrender to the Germans, four couriers chug-chugged by motorboat to the Greek mainland, put-putted by motorcycle to Yanina in Epirus, where their conquerors waited.
From Time Magazine Archive
Raban weathered bores effectively in Coasting, a wry account of a voyage around England in a small sailboat, and in Old Glory, in which he put-putted down the Mississippi in an aluminum skiff.
From Time Magazine Archive
King Alfonso leaped in a launch and put-putted out into the bay.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week, 41 Ibs. lighter, erstwhile Teamster Boss Dave Beck completed 30 months of his five-year term for faking tax returns and put-putted back to civilization.
From Time Magazine Archive
Gilly wiped silendy while her grandmother nervously put-putted on and on.
From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson
For years Rome's Questura security cops found themselves choking on crooks' exhaust fumes in their put-putting Fiats.
From Time Magazine Archive
He stands at the back of his doodlebug, put-putting along at four to twelve miles an hour.
From Time Magazine Archive
After a final, driving session with Il Duce in the chair, the put-putting motorboats carried ashore what was called a "pleasant surprise."
From Time Magazine Archive
Which brings us to Johnny Carson, who has been put-putting along on only $1.5 million a year.
From Time Magazine Archive
You can hear the put-putting halfway across town.
From "Linked" by Gordon Korman
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.
