Puppet

How to spell puppet

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce puppet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does puppet mean?

1. nounA small figure of a person or animal moved by the hand or by strings, used in performance.
2. nounA person or group whose actions are secretly controlled by another.

Puppet in a sentence

• The children laughed as the puppet danced across the tiny stage.

• Critics called the new leader a mere puppet of the foreign bank.

• She slipped her hand inside the puppet and made it nod.

• The committee was just a puppet for the chairman's private agenda.

Where does puppet come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pupa, which literally meant 'girl' or 'doll' and could also describe a small figure. From that root Old French formed poupette, a diminutive meaning 'little doll', and Middle English borrowed it as popet, used for a small child, a small figure, or a doll. Over time the spelling settled into the modern puppet, and the meaning narrowed to a jointed figure worked by hand or by strings on a small stage. By the early 1500s the word had also taken on its scornful figurative sense for a person whose actions are controlled by someone else. The same Latin pupa survives in the related words 'pupil' (the small image of yourself reflected in another person's eye) and the biological 'pupa', the doll-like stage of an insect, which keeps the spelling trap of the doubled p firmly in view.

How the word is built

• pupp- (from Latin pupa: girl, doll)
• -et (diminutive suffix: little)