Put — From Old English to English | etymologist.ai
put
/pʊt/·verb·c. 1000·Disputed
Origin
'Put' originally meant 'to thrust' — it broadened from forceful shoving to the default verb for placing anything.
Definition
To move something to a particular place or position; to place or set.
The Full Story
Old Englishbefore 1000 CEetymology disputed
From OldEnglish "putian" ("to push, to thrust"), of uncertain ultimate origin but likely from Proto-Germanic *putōną ("to push, to stick"). Some scholars connect it to Old Norse "púta" ("to swell out") and dialectal Swedish "putta" ("to push"), suggesting a Scandinavian reinforcement of a native English word during the Danelaw period. The word may trace further
Did you know?
Golf's 'putt' is the same word as 'put' — in Scottish English, 'put' retained its older pronunciation /pʌt/, and the spelling 'putt' was created in the eighteenth century to distinguish the gentle stroke on the green from ordinary 'putting.'
. By the 16th century, "put" had acquired scores of phrasal combinations — put up, put down, put out, put off — making it one of the most semantically flexible verbs in the language. Key roots: putian (Old English: "to push, thrust, impel").