See putty in someone's hands on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "A metaphor likening the easy malleability of putty to the easy manipulability of the person. First use appears c. 1867.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "putty in someone's hands (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with French translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Hungarian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Italian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "People",
"orig": "en:People",
"parents": [
"Human",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1894 May 27, Harold Frederic, “Marsena”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-07-27, page 19:",
"text": "Why, Marseny, here, he wan't no more than so much putty in her hands.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1941 December 11, “Caroline Chatfield Says”, in St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 2010-07-27, page 17:",
"text": "So long as she behaves in a way to keep his love and respect he's putty in her hands.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007 August 5, Kitty Empire, “Nothing compares 2 Prince”, in guardian.co.uk, retrieved 2010-07-27:",
"text": "[H]e clocks on at 8.30 pm with the opening guitar notes of his most famous song, ‘Purple Rain’. Everyone is instantly putty in his hands.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One who is readily manipulated or controlled by another person; a puppet."
],
"id": "en-putty_in_someone's_hands-en-noun-J4PVpvOM",
"links": [
[
"readily",
"readily"
],
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"puppet",
"puppet"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, of a person) One who is readily manipulated or controlled by another person; a puppet."
],
"raw_tags": [
"of a person"
],
"related": [
{
"word": "eat out of someone's hand"
},
{
"word": "wrap around one's little finger"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pushover"
},
{
"word": "wimp"
},
{
"word": "wuss"
},
{
"word": "putty in someone's fingers"
},
{
"word": "putty in the hands of someone"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "marionnette"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"word": "báb"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"english": "someone dances the way someone else whistles to him/her",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"literally"
],
"word": "úgy táncol, ahogy fütyülnek (neki)"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "pappamolla"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "joguete nas mãos de"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-putty in someone's hands.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b4/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg"
}
],
"word": "putty in someone's hands"
}
{
"etymology_text": "A metaphor likening the easy malleability of putty to the easy manipulability of the person. First use appears c. 1867.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "putty in someone's hands (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "eat out of someone's hand"
},
{
"word": "wrap around one's little finger"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with Hungarian translations",
"Terms with Italian translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"en:People"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1894 May 27, Harold Frederic, “Marsena”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-07-27, page 19:",
"text": "Why, Marseny, here, he wan't no more than so much putty in her hands.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1941 December 11, “Caroline Chatfield Says”, in St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 2010-07-27, page 17:",
"text": "So long as she behaves in a way to keep his love and respect he's putty in her hands.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007 August 5, Kitty Empire, “Nothing compares 2 Prince”, in guardian.co.uk, retrieved 2010-07-27:",
"text": "[H]e clocks on at 8.30 pm with the opening guitar notes of his most famous song, ‘Purple Rain’. Everyone is instantly putty in his hands.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One who is readily manipulated or controlled by another person; a puppet."
],
"links": [
[
"readily",
"readily"
],
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"puppet",
"puppet"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, of a person) One who is readily manipulated or controlled by another person; a puppet."
],
"raw_tags": [
"of a person"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-putty in someone's hands.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b4/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/En-au-putty_in_someone%27s_hands.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pushover"
},
{
"word": "wimp"
},
{
"word": "wuss"
},
{
"word": "putty in someone's fingers"
},
{
"word": "putty in the hands of someone"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "marionnette"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"word": "báb"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"english": "someone dances the way someone else whistles to him/her",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"literally"
],
"word": "úgy táncol, ahogy fütyülnek (neki)"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "pappamolla"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "a person easily manipulated",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "joguete nas mãos de"
}
],
"word": "putty in someone's hands"
}
Download raw JSONL data for putty in someone's hands meaning in All languages combined (3.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.