English
putt
Putt comes from Scots putt ‘to put’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *putōną ‘to stick, stab’.
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*putōną1‘to stick, stab’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150putian1
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500putten2‘to put’
- Scotsc. 1450–presentputt3‘to put’
- Englishearliest quotation 1913putt3
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Middle English putten
- 2 Wiktionary, Scots putt
- 3 Wiktionary, English putt
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, (please specify the page): “There were the golfers. Was it possible that they…”.
Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*putōnąWiktionary, Middle English putten‘to stick, stab’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150putianWiktionary, Middle English putten
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500puttenWiktionary, Scots putt‘to put’
- Scotsc. 1450–presentputtWiktionary, English putt‘to put’
- Englishearliest quotation 1913puttWiktionary, English putt. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, (please specify the page): “There were the golfers. Was it possible that they…”
The story
The Old English putian (‘to push; thrust; put; place’) derivation is commonly assumed, although no longer valid. In Dutch, the word is instanced in a description of golf in an early seventeenth-century edition of Pieter van Afferden's Tyrocinium linguae latinae. All derive from Proto-Germanic *putōną.
Linked words
through Middle English putten ‘to put’
Today it means
noun The act of tapping a golf ball lightly on a putting green.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “putt”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Middle English putten, Scots putt. 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 / putt