punt1

[puhnt] /pʌnt/
noun
1.
Football. a kick in which the ball is dropped and then kicked before it touches the ground.
Compare drop kick, place kick.
2.
a small, shallow boat having a flat bottom and square ends, usually used for short outings on rivers or lakes and propelled by poling.
verb (used with object)
3.
Football. to kick (a dropped ball) before it touches the ground.
4.
to propel (a small boat) by thrusting against the bottom of a lake or stream, especially with a pole.
5.
to convey in or as if in a punt.
verb (used without object)
6.
to punt a football.
7.
to propel a boat by thrusting a pole against the bottom of a river, stream, or lake.
8.
to travel or have an outing in a punt.
9.
Informal. to equivocate or delay:
If they ask you for exact sales figures, you'll have to punt.
Origin
before 1000; 1835-45 for def 1; Old English: flat-bottomed boat (not attested in Middle English) < Latin pontō punt, pontoon1; sense “to kick a dropped ball” perhaps via sense “to propel (a boat) by shoving”
Related forms
punter, noun

punt2

[puhnt] /pʌnt/
verb (used without object)
1.
Cards. to lay a stake against the bank, as at faro.
2.
Slang. to gamble, especially to bet on horse races or other sporting events.
noun
3.
Cards. a person who lays a stake against the bank.
Origin
1705-15; < French ponter, derivative of ponte punter, point in faro < Spanish punto point
Related forms
punter, noun

punt3

[poo nt, puhnt] /pʊnt, pʌnt/
noun
1.
a monetary unit of the Republic of Ireland until the euro was adopted, equal to 100 pence; Irish pound.
Origin
1970-75; < Irish < English pound2

Punt

[poo nt] /pʊnt/
noun
1.
an ancient Egyptian name of an area not absolutely identified but believed to be Somaliland.
Examples from the web for punt
  • Shell, which also took a sizeable punt on renewable energy, admits that its strategy has changed.
  • Some may be taking a punt on governments as much as companies.
  • He runs a number of funds that allow patient investors to take a punt on a basket of ideas that may produce a long-term pay-off.
  • One is said to have taken a huge and disastrous punt on a strengthening euro.
  • Executives claim that many actions are little more than a punt, and that some are not far off blackmail.
  • Goldman believes it can continue to punt its own money as long as its risk management remains strong.
  • Only one bid had been left beforehand with the auctioneer, a punt by a private collector hoping to snap up a bargain.
  • It is unlikely that a committee would have had the guts to allocate so much time to what was a speculative punt.
  • In effect, public sector plans have taken a punt on the stock market with taxpayer funds.
  • If betting on birds is not quite your thing, you can always take a punt on jellyfish.
British Dictionary definitions for punt

punt1

/pʌnt/
noun
1.
an open flat-bottomed boat with square ends, propelled by a pole See quant1
verb
2.
to propel (a boat, esp a punt) by pushing with a pole on the bottom of a river, etc
Word Origin
Old English punt shallow boat, from Latin pontō punt,pontoon1

punt2

/pʌnt/
noun
1.
a kick in certain sports, such as rugby, in which the ball is released and kicked before it hits the ground
2.
any long high kick
verb
3.
to kick (a ball, etc) using a punt
Word Origin
C19: perhaps a variant of English dialect bunt to push, perhaps a nasalized variant of butt³

punt3

/pʌnt/
verb
1.
(intransitive) to gamble; bet
noun
2.
a gamble or bet, esp against the bank, as in roulette, or on horses
3.
Also called punter. a person who bets
4.
(Austral & NZ, informal) take a punt at, to have an attempt or try at (something)
Word Origin
C18: from French ponter to punt, from ponte bet laid against the banker, from Spanish punto point, from Latin punctum

punt4

/pʊnt/
noun
1.
(formerly) the Irish pound
Word Origin
Irish Gaelic: pound
Word Origin and History for punt
n.

"kick," 1845; see punt (v.).

"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."

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.

Slang definitions & phrases for punt

punt 1

verb

To gamble; bet

[1706+; fr French ponte, Spanish punta, ''point,'' used for playing against the banker in faro and other games]


punt 2

verb
  1. To drop a course in order not to fail it
  2. To give up; withdraw; cop out: I hate to punt, but I just don't have time to finish this job
  3. To improvise or do something different when faced with few or no choices: had to punt when he didn't get in his first-choice school
  4. To return something; throw (or kick) something back: The high court punted the usetax issue back to Congress and cleared the way for future legislative action
  5. To stall for time; to delay; to relinquish control: Clinton suddenly punted on health reform and shifted to welfare

[1970s+ College students; fr the kick out of danger in football, fr mid1800s Rugby football, ''kick the ball before it hits the ground,'' of unknown origin; perhaps echoic]


punt in Technology


(From the punch line of an old joke referring to American football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt!") 1. To give up, typically without any intention of retrying. "Let's punt the movie tonight." "I was going to hack all night to get this feature in, but I decided to punt" may mean that you've decided not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even going to put in the feature.
2. More specifically, to give up on figuring out what the Right Thing is and resort to an inefficient hack.
3. A design decision to defer solving a problem, typically because one cannot define what is desirable sufficiently well to frame an algorithmic solution. "No way to know what the right form to dump the graph in is - we'll punt that for now."
4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off to some other section of the design. "It's too hard to get the compiler to do that; let's punt to the run-time system."
[Jargon File]