: a figure of an infant boy especially in European art of the Renaissance
usually used in plural

Examples of putto in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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In their center, Zoya drew Gorey-esque little boys, one trussed in rope, the other naked and chubby like a Renaissance putto. Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2024 Reinstall them in spacious state rooms, and the allegorical intentions about which the curators’ captions inform me—how, for instance, a putto unbuckling Mars’s armor in the Dulwich painting slyly chides the hawks who were driving forward the Thirty Years’ War—might just fall into place. Julian Bell, The New York Review of Books, 26 Dec. 2023

Word History

Etymology

Italian, literally, boy, from Vulgar Latin *puttus, alteration of Latin putus; akin to Latin puer boy — more at puerile

First Known Use

circa 1660, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of putto was circa 1660

Dictionary Entries Near putto

Cite this Entry

“Putto.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putto. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

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