putter

verb

1. (intransitive)To be active, but not excessively busy, at a task or a series of tasks.

   “We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket and commenced to putter with the lock.”

2. (intransitive)To produce intermittent bursts of sound in the course of operating.

   “By the time the engine had puttered and died Atkins and some of the others were out of the trenches and walking towards this new wonder machine.”

   “Timmy's dad drove an old blue truck that puttered and sputtered to get to the top of the mountain, that led to the valley, where … the WILDCAT waited.”

   “As I reluctantly left Tangkoko for the last time, bumping along the trail on a motorbike, Raoul, the alpha male who had smacked my leg, wandered out from among the trees. He was alone, and after I puttered by, I glanced back to see him swagger into the middle of the path to watch me go.”

   “My boyfriend, the cello owner, makes little noises while he putters around, which distracts me from reading my 20,000-word long-form articles about Iraq. So I noise-cancel him too.”

noun

1. One who puts or places.

   “He was a model of anal defensiveness: fastidious in his dress and appearance, a collector and putter of things in order, a classifier and labeler.”

   “[…] for example, Gleitman (1990:30), in support of her claim for universal alignments of syntax and semantics, argues for the universal naturalness of three arguments for 'put' verbs (a putter, a puttee, and a location).”

2. A shot-putter.
3. One who pushes the small wagons in a coal mine, to transport the coal mined by the getter.
4. A golf club specifically intended for a putt.
5. A person who is taking a putt or putting.