punt

punt

/pʌnt/

1 a long shallow boat with a flat bottom and square ends which is moved by pushing the end of a long pole against the bottom of a river

2 ​(British English, informal) a bet

The investment is little more than a punt.

3 ​(in rugby or American football) a long kick made after dropping the ball from your hands

4 ​the former unit of money in the Republic of Ireland (replaced in 2002 by the euro)

Idioms

Word Origin

noun sense 1 Old English, from Latin ponto, denoting a flat-bottomed ferry boat; readopted in the early 16th cent. from Middle Low German punte or Middle Dutch ponte ‘ferry boat’, of the same origin. noun sense 3 mid 19th cent.: probably from dialect punt ‘push forcibly’. Compare with bunt.