putt
v.v. to hit a golf ball gently across the grass toward the hole. You do this when the ball is already close to the target.
v. to strike a golf ball gently with a putter to move it a short distance across the green toward the hole.
He needs to putt carefully to win the game.
After a long drive down the fairway, she had to putt twice to finally get the ball into the hole.
The professional golfer spent hours on the practice green, knowing that the ability to putt consistently under pressure is what separates champions from the rest of the field.
Borrowed from Scots putt (“to put”). Compare Middle Dutch putten (“to dig a pit”). The Old English putian (“to push; thrust; put; place”) derivation is commonly assumed, although no longer valid.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.
Onomatopoeic, from putt-putt.
Probable variant of pot (“vessel”) or butt (“cask”).
Intransitive or transitive; when transitive, the object is usually the ball.