Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Slang A fool; an idiot.
  • noun Vulgar Slang A penis.
  • intransitive verb To behave in an idle manner; putter.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Among the Moravians, a Christmas decoration. Its essential is an evergreen tree, representing the tree of life. It is laden with nuts and fruit. See the extract.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fool; a jerk.
  • noun Vulgar The penis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A decoration or ornament in the Nativity tradition, usually placed under a Christmas tree.
  • noun slang fool, idiot
  • noun slang jerk
  • noun slang penis
  • verb slang waste time

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun obscene terms for penis
  • noun (Yiddish) a fool; an idiot

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Yiddish pots, penis, fool, of unknown origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Pennsylvania German putz; compare archaic German Putz ("ornament, decoration, finery"), putzen ("to clean; decorate").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Yiddish פּוץ (puts, "jerk, fool, penis"), probably a noun derivative of putsn ("to clean, shine"); compare early modern German butzen ("to decorate"), modern German putzen.

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Examples

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  • "What a putz!"

    April 13, 2009