putter
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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to busy or occupy oneself in a leisurely, casual, or ineffective manner.
to putter in the garden.
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to move or go in a specified manner with ineffective action or little energy or purpose.
to putter about the house on a rainy day.
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to move or go slowly or aimlessly; loiter.
noun
verb phrase
noun
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a person who putts.
-
a club with a relatively short, stiff shaft and a wooden or iron head, used in putting.
verb
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(intr;often foll by about or around) to busy oneself in a desultory though agreeable manner
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(intr;often foll by along or about) to move with little energy or direction
to putter about town
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to waste (time)
noun
noun
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a club for putting, usually having a solid metal head
-
a golfer who putts
noun
-
a person who puts
the putter of a question
-
a person who puts the shot
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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have putteredperfect
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has putteredperfect 3rd person singular
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am putteringprogressive 1st person singular
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putterssingular 3rd person
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putteringparticiple
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are putteringprogressive
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has been putteringperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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is putteringprogressive 3rd person singular
-
have been putteringperfect progressive
Past
-
had putteredperfect
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were putteringprogressive plural
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putteredsimple
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putteredparticiple
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had been putteringperfect progressive
-
was putteringprogressive singular
Future
Etymology
Origin of putter1
First recorded in 1825–30; variant of potter 2
Origin of putter2
First recorded in 1740–50; putt + -er 1
Origin of putter3
Explanation
A golfer who hits the ball very gently close to the hole is a putter. The club used to do this is also a putter. But to putter is to poke around aimlessly, maybe watch a little golf on TV. In golf, the putter is the club with the flat face, and sometimes with a slightly bent shaft. When you hit the ball with a putter, you putt. If you putter, it's something completely different — it means you make yourself busy without accomplishing anything huge. You might putter around the house on Saturday afternoon, filling the dishwasher and flipping through a magazine, for example. The golfing meaning comes from a Scottish word for "push or shove."
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.
“When I’m working, I just don’t cook at all basically, and then when I get time off I like to putter around in the kitchen. I’m not very good, but I like to do it.”
From MarketWatch • Jun. 11, 2026
And as Rai’s putter heated up, including with a 68-footer for birdie on No. 17, he built a three-stroke margin of victory.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026
He was beaten by McIlroy in a play-off last year, but put himself in position to avenge that defeat as McIlroy's stone-cold putter loosened his grip on the tournament.
From BBC • Apr. 12, 2026
I think I’m just a serial putterer, in that I putter around and I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 12, 2025
Seven years later John and I split up because he had been a farm boy who wanted a wife to putter about the house and have babies.
From "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" by Melba Pattillo Beals
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.
