Etymograph

English

put

Put comes from Middle English putten ‘to put’, from Proto-West Germanic *putōn ‘to stick, stab, poke’, and ultimately from Proto-Germanic *putōną.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*putōną1‘to stick’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*putōn1‘to stick’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150putian1
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500putten1‘to put’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1382–1395put1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English put
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe et al., The Holy Bible: “No man hath more love than this, that a…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*putōnąWiktionary, English put‘to stick’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*putōnWiktionary, English put‘to stick’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150putianWiktionary, English put
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500puttenWiktionary, English put‘to put’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1382–1395putWiktionary, English put. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe et al., The Holy Bible: “No man hath more love than this, that a…”

The story

From Middle English putten, pitten, pytten, puten, poten, from Old English putian, *pūtian ("to push, put out"; attested by derivative putung (‘pushing, impulse, instigation, urging’)) and potian (‘to push, thrust, strike, butt, goad’), both from Proto-West Germanic *putōn, from Proto-Germanic *putōną (‘to stick, stab’), which is of uncertain origin.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bud- (‘to shoot, sprout’), which would make it cognate with Sanskrit बुन्द (bundá, “arrow”), Lithuanian budė, and budis (‘mushroom, fungus’).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with put, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Middle English putten ‘to put’

2 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

verb To physically place (sth or sb swh).

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “put”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *putōną / put