See putty in someone's hands in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for putty in someone's hands meaning in English (3.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "A metaphor likening the easy malleability of putty to the easy manipulability of the person.",
"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": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"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": "quotation"
},
{
"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": "quotation"
},
{
"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": "quotation"
}
],
"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",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "putty in someone's hands"
}
{
"etymology_text": "A metaphor likening the easy malleability of putty to the easy manipulability of the person.",
"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 entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns",
"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": "quotation"
},
{
"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": "quotation"
},
{
"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": "quotation"
}
],
"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",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"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"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.