puer
/ˈpjuː.ə/US/ˈpju.ɚ/
puer noun: dung (of dogs, fowls, etc) used in tanning, after applying lime, to soften skins. Also the alternative form of pu'er.
Noun
puer (uncountable)
- Dung (of dogs, fowls, etc) used in tanning, after applying lime, to soften skins.
- A solution called the ‘pure’ or the 'pewer' (having never seen the word written.., we must spell it as pronounced) is prepared in a large vessel, and into this the skins are immersed.1842, The Penny Magazine, May 212/1
- […] The bacteria of fresh dog-dung were not found to possess a satisfactory puering effect, but those from dung with had been fermented a month (as in practice) have a result nearly equal to actual puer.1903, Henry Richardson Proctor, The principles of leather manufacture, page 174
Proper noun capitalized: Puer
Puer
- Alternative form of Pu'er.
- Until the 1950s, Han Chinese traders came from Puer city to purchase and transport this crude tea by horsetrain back to Puer, about 150 miles away, where it was processed into "bricks" or loose tea in family workshops.1988, Sheng-ji Pei, “Plant Products and Ethnicity in the Markets of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China”, in Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia, →ISBN, →LCCN...
- The lack of knowledge of Chinese was regarded as a major obstacle for the imposition of Chinese rule, and already in 1912 the head of the Chinese government of Simao and Puer reported to the provincial government about the urgent need for developing Chinese education in Sipsong Panna (Xiao 1993...1999, Mette Halskov Hansen, “History of Chinese Education in Sipsong Panna”, in Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China, University of Washington Press...
Also used as
puer is also the alternative form of pu'er.
puer is also the ellipsis of puer aeternus.
Forms of puer
| plural | puers |
|---|
Origin of puer
Perhaps from French puer.
From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of 普洱 (pǔ'ěr), without syllable-dividing mark (隔音符號／隔音符号 (géyīn fúhào)).
Borrowed from Latin puer (“boy, lad, child”).
Phrases with puer
Words that rhyme with puer
Questions about puer
- What does puer mean?
- Puer means dung (of dogs, fowls, etc) used in tanning, after applying lime, to soften skins.
- What part of speech is puer?
- Puer can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce puer?
- Puer is pronounced /ˈpju.ɚ/ (US).
- What is the plural of puer?
- The plural of puer is puers.
Words near puer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: puer (page history and authors); Puer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-puer.wav.
Cite this entry: “puer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/puer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.