Word.ws English Dictionary

punt

/pʌnt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/pʊnt/

punt noun: a narrow shallow boat, square at both ends, traditionally propelled by a pole.

punt: a narrow shallow boat, square at both ends, traditionally propelled by a pole
Image: This file is from the Mechanical Curator collection, a set, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

punt (plural punts)

  1. A narrow shallow boat, square at both ends, traditionally propelled by a pole.
    • Near-synonym: pontoon

Verb (1)

punt (third-person singular simple present punts, present participle punting, simple past and past participle punted)

  1. To propel a punt or similar craft by means of a pole.
  2. Of a fish, to walk along the seafloor using its fins as limbs.

Verb (2)

punt (third-person singular simple present punts, present participle punting, simple past and past participle punted)

  1. To dropkick; to kick something a considerable distance.
    • At the dump he emptied the station wagon quickly and only once punted a bag of refuse, exploding it like a pinata at a Mexican Christmas.1975, Barry Targan, Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, page 133
    • He even hated pets—I once saw him punt a cat.2019, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow, One World, →ISBN, page 100
    1. (intransitive, transitive, Australian rules football, Gaelic football) To kick a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground. (This puts the ball farther from the goal across which the opposing team is attempting to score, so improves the chances of the team punting.)
    2. To kick a bouncing ball far and high.
      • With five minutes remaining Hennessey was down well to block another Vukcevic shot, while Gunter was smartly in to punt away the dangerous loose ball.2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC
  2. (colloquial, intransitive, transitive) To equivocate and delay or put off (answering a question, addressing an issue, etc).
    • The briefer reported it had been terminated on orders from Secretary Schlesinger, but attributed this to a sense Shamrock produced little, not to the fact it had been discovered. The NSA briefer punted on whether Fort Meade had been reading Americans' private messages, ...2014, John Prados, The Family Jewels: The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power, University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 91
    • The federal government has punted bringing forward extraordinary immigration powers that just weeks ago it was saying were so urgent they needed to be rushed through the parliament.2024 May 16, Brett Worthington, “Labor delays bid for extraordinary immigration powers despite claims of urgency”, in ABC News, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  3. To retreat from one's objective; to abandon an effort one still notionally supports.
    • Punting: Using svn revert¶ If you decide that you want to throw out your changes and start your edits again (whether this occurs after a conflict or anytime), just revert your changesca. 2002, Ben Collins-Sussman, Brian W. Fitzpatrick, C. Michael Pilato, “Basic Work Cycle”, in Version Control with Subversion
  4. (colloquial, intransitive) To make the best choice from a set of non-ideal alternatives.
  5. (colloquial, transitive) To eject; to kick out of a place.
    • The user is punted from the channel, and must rejoin to gain access.2001, Roger A. Grimes, Malicious Mobile Code: Virus Protection for Windows, page 236
    • If you want to join this riot, we urge you to! You wont have to worry about being TOSed or reported because there will be no Guides online! So do whatever you want—punt, scroll, tos, just turn AOL into a war zone!2003, Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of High-tech Crime and Crime-fighting, AOL Riot on June 1, 1998, page 21

Noun (2)

punt (plural punts)

  1. A kick made by a player who drops the ball and kicks it before it hits the ground.

Noun (3)

punt (plural punts)

  1. (obsolete) A point in the game of faro.
  2. (obsolete) The act of playing basset, baccarat, faro, etc.
  3. A bet or wager.
    • Anyone up for a punt on Randwick?
  4. (Australia) Gambling, as a pastime, especially betting on horseraces or the dogs.
    • Did I actually back a winner and finish in front on the punt?1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 123
    • Wishing you all happy new year and a prosperous one on the punt.2001 December 31, The Riverine Herald, Echua, Victoria, page 12, column 3
  5. A highly speculative investment or other commitment.
    • “Months ago, copper traders worldwide took a punt that Trump's tariff pitch for their market was real, not bluster.[…]”2025 July 12, Leslie Hook, quoting Tom Price, “Copper traders’ bet on tariffs pays off to the tune of $300mn”, in FT Weekend (Companies & Markets section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN...
  6. A wild guess.
    Synonyms:
    stab
  7. The indentation in the base of a wine bottle.
  8. A thin glass rod which is temporarily attached to a larger piece in order to better manipulate the larger piece.

Verb (3)

punt (third-person singular simple present punts, present participle punting, simple past and past participle punted)

  1. To play basset, baccara, faro, etc.
    • Here it was that, guarded by double doors, Sir Francis smoked cigars, and read Bell’s Life in London, and went to sleep after dinner, when he was not smoking over the billiard-table at his clubs, or punting at the gambling-houses in Saint James’s.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 38, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  2. (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, UK) To stake against the bank, to back a horse, to gamble or take a chance more generally
    • She heard […] of his punting at gaming tables.1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC
    • Whether you want to gamble on a horse race, bet on which player will score first in a game of football, have a punt on a particular tennis player winning a grand slam event, you are buying a chance, a chance which is measured in terms of probability, ‘the odds’.2004, John Buglear, “Is it worth the risk? – introducing probability”, in Quantitative methods for business: the A-Z of QM, →ISBN, page 339
  3. (figuratively) To make a highly speculative investment or other commitment, or take a wild guess.

Noun (4)

punt (plural punts)

  1. The Irish pound, used as the unit of currency of Ireland until it was replaced by the euro in 2002.

Proper noun capitalized: Punt

Punt

  1. (historical) A former kingdom in the Horn of Africa, Africa, on the southern shore of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A country contemporaneous with the Old Kingdom of Egypt, where frankincense, gold, ebony, ivory is found.

punt meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Punjabi

punt in Hindi

पंट, पंटिंग करना

punt in Telugu

పంట్, పంట్ చెయ్యడానికి, పంట్ చెయ్యడం

punt in Kannada

ಪಂಟ್

punt in Punjabi

ਪੁੰਟ, ਪੰਟ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਪੰਟ ਕਰਨਾ
More languagesFewer languages
punt in Gujarati
પુંટ
punt in Odia
ପଣ୍ଟିଙ୍ଗ କରିବା
punt in Nepali
पन्ट गर्न

Examples of punt in a sentence

  • The choice to punt at this down and distance is unusual.
  • By the Parks the river was dense with row-boats, punts and Canaders.
  • A punt is made by letting the ball drop from the hands and kicking it just before it touches the ground.

All 25 example sentences with punt

Synonyms of punt

Forms of punt

Noun
pluralpunts
Verb
third-person singular presentpunts
present participlepunting
past participlepunted
pastpunted

Past tense of punt: punted

Plural of punt: punts

Origin of punt

From Old English punt, from Latin pontō (“Gaulish flat-bottomed boat, pontoon”), from pons (“bridge”); readopted from Middle Low German punte (“ferry boat”) or Middle Dutch ponte (“ferry boat”) of the same origin.

Possibly a dialectal variant of bunt. Rugby is the origin of the sports usage of the term.

Borrowed from French pointe or Spanish punto (“point”). Doublet of point, pointe, ponto, puncto, punctum, and punto.

Words formed from punt

Phrases with punt

Words that rhyme with punt

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about punt

What does punt mean?
Punt means a narrow shallow boat, square at both ends, traditionally propelled by a pole.
What is punt in Hindi?
Punt in Hindi is पंट, पंटिंग करना. See Punt meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is punt?
Punt can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce punt?
Punt is pronounced /pʌnt/.
What is the plural of punt?
The plural of punt is punts.

Words near punt in the dictionary

  1. punsmiths
  2. punster
  3. punsters
  4. punstress
  5. punstresses
  6. punt
  7. punt gun
  8. punt guns
  9. punt into the long grass
  10. punt pole
  11. punt poles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punt (page history and authors); Punt (page history and authors); punt (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); punt (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-au-punt.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-punt.wav.

Cite this entry: “punt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/punt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.