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:
Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis are the performers caught up in a put-put love affair while the jets vroom prettily above.
From Time Magazine Archive
His motley "Honeymoon Fleet" consisted mostly of light Tiger-Moth trainers, no more lethal than the tiny yellow Cubs that put-put around U.S. airports.
From Time Magazine Archive
How all of us used to dislike the rattling of the put-put, now it is music.
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
In a quiet place like that its put-put could be heard for miles.
From Wings of the Wind by Credo Fitch Harris
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
Through bad, murky weather, all mist and fog, they put-putted southward across little ponds and up small streams.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Fortunately for the traveler, most cargo is dispatched through the efficient railway system; other long-distance shipments go by boat, sailed, put-putted, poled and paddled along China's endless rivers, canals and coastline.
From Time Magazine Archive
Gilly wiped silendy while her grandmother nervously put-putted on and on.
From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson
He stands at the back of his doodlebug, put-putting along at four to twelve miles an hour.
From Time Magazine Archive
For years Rome's Questura security cops found themselves choking on crooks' exhaust fumes in their put-putting Fiats.
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
Jean, who has ignored the instructions of the auto dealer, has just overturned his car, while Jacques, who paid attention, is pictured put-putting happily by on his motor bike.
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.
