punt

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   (football) a kick in which the football is dropped from the hands and kicked before it touches the ground

   The punt traveled 50 yards.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Punt represents three separate words. The flat-bottomed boat is from Latin ponto “flat-bottomed ferry”; the betting term, recorded from the early 18th century and initially denoting a card player, comes from French ponte or Spanish ponto “point.” The kicking term was recorded in Rugby School football rules in 1845 and may come from a local dialect verb meaning “push or kick.”

From Old English punt, from Latin pontō (“Gaulish flat-bottomed boat, pontoon”), from pons (“bridge”); readopted from Middle Low German punte (“ferry boat”) or Middle Dutch ponte (“ferry boat”) of the same origin.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary