putto
Americannoun
-
putti
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of putto
1635–45; < Italian: literally, boy < Latin putus
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:
Unlike the soft, pliable versions of the Christ child in his early Madonnas, this is a monumental, muscular putto, using his strength to hold that garland aloft.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
The view consisted of a rectangular, tiled pool hedged with silvery artemisia bushes; at one end stood a garden-gnome lump of a reproduction putto, coyly peeing into the water.
From Time Magazine Archive
The same tendencies are to be noted in the bronze putto at the Bargello.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 6 "Dodwell" to "Drama" by Various
And his beautiful putto, boy and dolphin, are loved by everyone.
From Voices from the Past by Paul Alexander Bartlett
Thayr surnames be putto lest any man hereafter shuld vsurpe any D iiij.cause of thayr prayse.
From The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion by Desiderius Erasmus
It is as if she had been wrested away by a natural force, scarcely understood, but so powerful that it stays the hands raised by the putti, who seem to want to oppose Zeus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
The artist gave one of the putti bearing her forward a wreath of pink and white roses, a reference to her name.
From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2020
These were the sorts of meals involving heaping plates of pasta and red sauce in a restaurant festooned with clichés: murals of gondolas, peasants and putti, a soundtrack heavy with accordion and kitsch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2018
Long golden fringe on the back of leather jackets gave the impression of putti wings.
From Washington Times ● May 30, 2017
According to Vasari, Donatello designed the wooden putti carrying garlands in the new Sacristy of the Duomo.
From Donatello, by Lord Balcarres by David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
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.
