punt
pronunciation
How to pronounce punt in British English:
UK [pʌnt]
How to pronounce punt in American English:
US [pʌnt]
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- Noun:
- formerly the basic unit of money in Ireland; equal to 100 pence
- an open flat-bottomed boat used in shallow waters and propelled by a long pole
- (football) a kick in which the football is dropped from the hands and kicked before it touches the ground
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- Verb:
- kick the ball
- propel with a pole
- place a bet on
Word Origin
- punt
- punt: English has three separate words punt. The oldest is punt ‘flat-bottomed boat’ [15], which comes via Middle Low German punte or punto from Latin pontō, a term for a sort of Gaulish boat which also produced English pontoon. Punt ‘bet’ [18] (better known in the form of the agent noun punter ‘better’, hence ‘customer’) comes from French ponter, a derivative of ponte ‘bet against the banker in certain card games’.This was adapted from Spanish punto ‘point’, a descendant of Latin punctum (source of English point). Punt ‘kick’ [19] may be a variant of bunt ‘push’ [19] (now used as a baseball term, meaning ‘hit the ball softly’); this could in turn be an alteration of butt, but it might also come from a Celtic source, related to Breton bounta ‘butt’.=> pontoon; point, punctuation
- punt (n.1)
- "kick," 1845; see punt (v.).
- punt (n.2)
- "flat-bottomed river boat," late Old English punt, perhaps an ancient survival of British Latin ponto "flat-bottomed boat" (see OED), a kind of Gallic transport (Caesar), also "floating bridge" (Gellius), from Latin pontem (nominative pons) "bridge" (see pontoon). Or from or influenced by Old French cognate pont "large, flat boat."
- punt (v.)
- "to kick a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground," 1845, first in a Rugby list of football rules, perhaps from dialectal punt "to push, strike," alteration of Midlands dialect bunt "to push, butt with the head," of unknown origin, perhaps echoic. Student slang meaning "give up, drop a course so as not to fail," 1970s, is because a U.S. football team punts when it cannot advance the ball. Related: Punted; punting.
Example
- 1. She soon learned to punt .
- 2. Eventually the temptation to take a punt on property becomes overwhelming .
- 3. But volumes are up , and nothing is stopping outsiders from having a punt .
- 4. Hedge funds have a bottomless appetite for derivatives as a way to manage risk and punt with borrowed money .
- 5. Prince alwaleed bin talal is the perfect investor for twitter : immensely rich and willing to take a punt .