From Middle English popet, probably from, though attested earlier than, Middle French poupette, diminutive of poupée (cf. also Medieval Latin *pupata), ultimately derived from Latin pupa (“doll, puppet; girl”). The nominal form first appears c. 1531, and the verbal form c. 1635. See also puppy.

• enPR: pŭpʹĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈpʌpɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌpɪt
• Hyphenation: pup‧pet

puppet (plural puppets)

1. Any small model of a person or animal able to be moved by strings or rods, or in the form of a glove.
2. (figuratively) A person, country, etc, controlled by another.
   • 1820 March, [Walter Scott], The Monastery. A Romance.[…], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,[…]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne,[…], →OCLC:

     These men , from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst after knowledge beyond their sphere , committed burglary upon the barn in which the puppets had been consigned to repose

   • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 209:

     Every act of a Roman, from birth to death, from dawn to night, was controlled and supervised by some presiding deity. Man was thus virtually a symbolic puppet in the hands of the Roman pantheon.

3. (obsolete) A poppet; a small image in the human form; a doll.
4. (engineering) The upright support for the bearing of the spindle in a lathe.

• (a person directed by another): monkey (with reference to organ grinders), creature

• marionette
• muppet
• puppy

• → Irish: puipéad
• → Welsh: pyped

puppet (third-person singular simple present puppets, present participle puppeting, simple past and past participle puppeted)

1. (transitive, also figuratively) To control or manipulate like a puppet.