puppet

noun

pup·pet ˈpə-pət

often attributive

: a small-scale figure (as of a person or animal) usually with a cloth body and hollow head that fits over and is moved by the hand

: marionette

: doll sense 1

: one whose acts are controlled by an outside force or influence

a puppet ruler

puppetlike

ˈpə-pət-ˌlīk

adjective

Examples of puppet in a Sentence

a dictator who was perceived as being an American puppet gave her a puppet with strings for a gift

Recent Examples on the Web But Krofft shows, which featured extravagant puppets and scenery, were often expensive to produce and sometimes had premises that could be a hard sell; one show, for instance, focused on magical, talking hats. —

Daniel E. Slotnik, New York Times, 25 Nov. 2023 The meatball heads were cast members putting their heads inside of a meatball puppet made by Monkey Boys Prods., who do all the puppets for the show. —

Brian Steinberg, Variety, 19 Nov. 2023 Go out with the kids: Bring the little ones out to the Santa Monica pier to see Amal, a 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl. —

Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2023 An adjacent space exhibits some of the puppets the filmmaker animated, as well as props used to make the videos. —

Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2023 In recent weeks, 4chan users have shared instructions to use AI image generation tools that are freely available online to create antisemitic depictions of Jewish people, leaning into old tropes of them as evil or greedy puppet masters, according to Memetica. —

Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, 14 Nov. 2023 In the venue itself, though, she was separated from her onetime lover and alleged puppet master by perhaps thirty feet of lawyers and screens. —

Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2023 The little wolf puppet is a full prosthetic animatronic puppet. —

Brande Victorian, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Oct. 2023 That no event has really been an action, except in the undemanding sense in which the puppet Punch killing Judy was an action. —

Nikhil Krishnan, The New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'puppet.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.