Word.ws English Dictionary

putu

UK/ˈpuːtuː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

General South African/ˈpʊtʊ/

putu noun: a form of porridge made from maize meal.

Noun

putu (uncountable)

  1. (South Africa) A form of porridge made from maize meal.
    • Theo and I would join the servants for breakfast, squatting on our haunches round the three-legged iron pot, helping ourselves to tough putu porridge in our cupped hands.1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage, published 2000, page 328
    • Jonathan is volunteering to carve the leg of lamb that was decided on, although there's putu with beans as well as roast potatoes Reed style (or what Jabu knows as white style).2012, Nadine Gordimer, No Time Like the Present, Bloomsbury, published 2013, page 242

Origin of putu

From Afrikaans putu, or its source, Zulu uphuthu.

Phrases with putu

Questions about putu

What does putu mean?
Putu means a form of porridge made from maize meal.
What part of speech is putu?
Putu is a noun.
How do you pronounce putu?
Putu is pronounced /ˈpʊtʊ/ (General South African).

Words near putu in the dictionary

  1. puttyroots
  2. puttywalla
  3. puttywallah
  4. puttywallahs
  5. puttywallas
  6. putu
  7. putu piring
  8. Putukwam
  9. Putumayo
  10. Putung
  11. Putuo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putu (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.

Last updated:

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