Word.ws English Dictionary

putter around

putter around verb: to engage in meaningless activity.

Verb

putter around (third-person singular simple present putters around, present participle puttering around, simple past and past participle puttered around)

  1. (US) To engage in meaningless activity.
    • I can't wait until I'm old enough to "putter around".1994 January 21, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic)

Forms of putter around

third-person singular presentputters around
present participleputtering around
past participleputtered around
pastputtered around
alternative formpotter around

Questions about putter around

What does putter around mean?
Putter around means to engage in meaningless activity.
What part of speech is putter around?
Putter around is a verb.
What is the past tense of putter around?
The past tense of putter around is puttered around.

Words near putter around in the dictionary

  1. puttees
  2. putten
  3. Puttenham
  4. putter
  5. putter about
  6. putter around
  7. putter up
  8. putter-on
  9. puttered
  10. puttered about
  11. puttered around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putter around (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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