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punt (third-person singular simple presentpunts, present participlepunting, simple past and past participlepunted)
To dropkick; to kick something a considerable distance.
1975, Barry Targan, Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, page 133:
At the dump he emptied the station wagon quickly and only once punted a bag of refuse, exploding it like a pinata at a Mexican Christmas.
2019, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow, One World, →ISBN, page 100:
He even hated pets—I once saw him punt a cat.
(rugby,American football, Australian Rules football,Gaelic football,soccer,transitive,intransitive) To kick a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground. (This puts the ball farther from the goal across which the opposing team is attempting to score, so improves the chances of the team punting.)
2014, John Prados, The Family Jewels: The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power, University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 91:
The briefer reported it had been terminated on orders from Secretary Schlesinger, but attributed this to a sense Shamrock produced little, not to the fact it had been discovered. The NSA briefer punted on whether Fort Meade had been reading Americans' private messages, ...
To retreat from one's objective; to abandon an effort one still notionally supports.
ca. 2002, Ben Collins-Sussman, Brian W. Fitzpatrick, C. Michael Pilato, “Basic Work Cycle”, in Version Control with Subversion:
Punting: Using svn revert¶ If you decide that you want to throw out your changes and start your edits again (whether this occurs after a conflict or anytime), just revert your changes
2001, Roger A. Grimes, Malicious Mobile Code: Virus Protection for Windows, page 236:
The user is punted from the channel, and must rejoin to gain access.
2003, Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of High-tech Crime and Crime-fighting, AOL Riot on June 1, 1998, page 21:
If you want to join this riot, we urge you to! You wont have to worry about being TOSed or reported because there will be no Guides online! So do whatever you want—punt, scroll, tos, just turn AOL into a war zone!
Here it was that, guarded by double doors, Sir Francis smoked cigars, and read Bell’s Life in London, and went to sleep after dinner, when he was not smoking over the billiard-table at his clubs, or punting at the gambling-houses in Saint James’s.
2004, John Buglear, “Is it worth the risk? – introducing probability”, in Quantitative methods for business: the A-Z of QM, →ISBN, page 339:
Whether you want to gamble on a horse race, bet on which player will score first in a game of football, have a punt on a particular tennis player winning a grand slam event, you are buying a chance, a chance which is measured in terms of probability, ‘the odds’.
2006 June 23, Dan Roebuck, “Eriksson's men still worth a punt”, in The Guardian:
Eriksson's men still worth a punt
2009 November 3, Sarah Collerton, “Cup punt not child's play”, in ABC News:
Australians have a reputation for being keen to bet on two flies climbing up a wall and today young ones often take a casual classroom punt
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
References
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “punt”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies