1824 M. Blennerhassett Widow of Rock & Other Poems 191 Like the raindrop's puttering sound, On the dozy fire-heap cast.

1947 J. Steinbeck Wayward Bus 197 The rain had diminished so that there was only a faint puttering on the roof.

1955 Times 27 May 11/4 One of those little engines which make a puttering noise.

2004 Newsday (Nexis) 23 Sept. She heard what sounded like a dying engine. ‘I heard a puttering. A put, put, put,’ she said.

1835 D. P. Thompson Adventures Timothy Peacock 129 Beat down the door—what's the use in puttering?

1894 Mrs. Alden in Chicago Advance 27 Dec. 448/3 If you two girls would stop your everlasting puttering over paint and embroidery, and do something.

1938 Amer. Home Jan. 41/2 It is also a type of gardening that can be pursued with truly beautiful and satisfactory results even by those who do their own puttering with a few packets of seed in a limited area.

1992 Down East Feb. 44/2 I wish I could say that the time I spend here is very creative, but it's mostly just puttering.

1852 Wisconsin Express 3 June 1/3 I heard the sound of a heavy blow..then naught save the howling blast and the puttering rain.

1896 ‘Mark Twain’ Personal Recoll. Joan of Arc ii. xxix. 248 We rode off through the puttering rain.

1958 Times 7 July 9/4 The mower must depend on human exertion and not be of the petrol-puttering kind.

1971 P. Crampton tr. T. Heyerdahl Ra Exped. vii. 163 Our first hesitant moves were now being followed by excited journalists and experienced old salts on board the puttering vessels which circled about us.

1990 Trav. & Life Dec.–Jan. 40/2 The birdsong is threatened by nothing more powerful than a puttering old milking machine.

1855 H. M. Stephens Hagar the Martyr xxii. 234 ‘Now don't let me see you out of bed again for a month,’ said the puttering little nurse.

1896 McKean (Smethport, Pa.) Democrat 5 June 2/2 From the moment that the New York Senator dropped Tillman the South Carolina firebrand had become a puttering, sputtering spark.

1980 A. Tyler Morgan's Passing (1983) ii. i. 34 He had always been a tinkering, puttering, hardware sort of a man.

2001 B. Hannah Yonder stands your Orphan 13 A bombardier out of Engand and over Germany for the Eighth Air Force, and a puttering aeronaut ever since, a tinkering veteran.

1857 H. D. Thoreau Jrnl. 26 Mar. in Writings (1906) IX. viii. 303 He remarks that it is a puttering job and worth a good deal more than he can charge.

1878 L. C. Bell in Wide Awake Jan. 24/1 Every morning in the midst of his chores, Max found time for a long, hovering, puttering visit.

1897 R. Kipling Captains Courageous iii. 82 But it's a putterin' job all the same.

1913 J. Muir Story my Boyhood iv. 142 Alighting on nearby trees, they sing with a hearty vengeance, bursting out without any puttering prelude.

1955 Clearfield (Pa.) Progress 12 Mar. 4/2 It is slow and puttering work.

2002 Business Recorder (Nexis) 23 Jan. The civilians..were generally seen volunteering their services to the troops in doing puttering jobs and even participating in construction of defences.

1887 Harper's Mag. Aug. 479/2 So wanderingly, putteringly benevolent are some of his letters.

1935 Brooklyn Daily Eagle 25 Mar. 16 Shumann and his wife, the parachute jumper and the putteringly irresponsible Jiggs.

1995 Dallas Morning News (Nexis) 6 Jan. 35 a Death is putteringly genial. It's like a dead man going for a walk. It feels like a slow stroll.