Word.ws English Dictionary

put by

put by verb: to store, or place in reserve; to save (money, etc.) for later use.

Verb

put by (third-person singular simple present puts by, present participle putting by, simple past and past participle put by)

  1. (transitive) To store, or place in reserve; to save (money, etc.) for later use.
    • Our family has been putting food by for generations.
    • I have put by a few hundred pounds for a rainy day.
  2. (transitive) To remove (something) from the present context and into its proper place; (figurative) to reject or disregard.
    • When the lesson was finished, she put by her books and papers.
    • For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl:c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  3. (ditransitive) To perform an action without attracting the attention of.
    • I managed to put that transaction by accounts payable.
  4. (intransitive) Of a ship: to be run aground intentionally to avoid a collision
    • The Bow Spring put by to avoid colliding with the Manzanillo II.

Synonyms of put by

All synonyms of put by

Forms of put by

third-person singular presentputs by
present participleputting by
past participleput by
pastput by

Origin of put by

From put + by.

Questions about put by

What does put by mean?
Put by means to store, or place in reserve; to save (money, etc.) for later use.
What part of speech is put by?
Put by is a verb.
What is the past tense of put by?
The past tense of put by is put by.

Words near put by in the dictionary

  1. put batteries in someone's back
  2. put before
  3. put behind one
  4. put bread on the table
  5. put butter on one's bread
  6. put by
  7. put case
  8. put daylight between oneself and someone
  9. put down
  10. put down as
  11. put down for

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put by (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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Cite this entry: “put by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.