Put or putt?
put is a verb meaning “To physically place (sth or sb swh)”; putt is a noun meaning “The act of tapping a golf ball lightly on a putting green”. Use put as a verb and putt as a noun (putt is also a verb: “To lightly strike a golf ball with a putter”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) put is about 324 times as common as putt.
What is the difference between put and putt?
| put | putt | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To physically place (sth or sb swh) To place in abstract; to attach or attribute; to assign The act of putting; an action; a movement; a thrust; a push | The act of tapping a golf ball lightly on a putting green To lightly strike a golf ball with a putter A regular sound characterized by the sound of "putt putt putt putt...", such as made by some slowly stroking internal combustion engines |
| Example | She put her books on the table | none recorded |
| Forms | puts, putting | putts |
| Pronunciation | /pʊt/ [pʰʊʔt] /pɵt/ | /pʌt/ [pʰat] [pʰʌt] |
| In writing | 457 times per million words | 1.4 times per million words |
Sources: put and putt in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of put and putt
put
- 1
To physically place (sth or sb swh)
She put her books on the table
- 2
Ellipsis of put option (“right to sell something at a predetermined price”)
He bought a January '08 put for Procter and Gamble at 80 to hedge his bet
- 3
Acronym of parameterized unit test
- 4
To place in abstract; to attach or attribute; to assign
The government put restrictions on vehicle imports
- 5
The act of putting; an action; a movement; a thrust; a push
the put of a ball
- 6
Acronym of parameterized unit testing
- 7
To bring or set (into a certain relation, state or condition)
Put your house in order!
- 8
An old card game
putt
- 1
The act of tapping a golf ball lightly on a putting green
- 2
To lightly strike a golf ball with a putter
- 3
A regular sound characterized by the sound of "putt putt putt putt...", such as made by some slowly stroking internal combustion engines
- 4
To make a putting sound
- 5
Small cart
- 6
UKslangA motorcycle
- 7
slangTo ride one's motorcycle, to go for a motorcycle ride
- 8
To move along slowly
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, put or putt?
put appears 457 times per million words; putt 1.4 times per million words.
put 457 times per million wordsputt 1.4 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search put vs putt?
“put vs putt” is searched about 40 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“putt vs put”, “put or putt”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.