Quiz time! Does pungle mean a) a baby platypus, or b) “to put down money.” It’s the latter. Pungle is most common in the western United States. It comes from the Spanish pongale, an imperative meaning “put it down.” For example, you might pungle down cash at a poker table or a checkout counter. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Pungle”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
And here’s a word that has me very excited, Grant, pungle.
Do you know this word?
Baby platypus?
No, no, no, that’s a puggle.
Oh.
But pungle, P-U-N-G-L-E.
It means to shell out, that is to put down money.
Or like if you force somebody to pay up, you might say, I made him pungle up.
It’s mainly used in the western part of the United States.
And what’s really exciting is that this weird-sounding word makes perfect sense if you know that it comes from the Spanish imperative pongale, that is, to put it there or put it down.
So it’s been thoroughly anglicized.
Yeah, to pungle.
So, for example, you might pungle down money on the poker table.
Interesting. I love it.
We’d love for you to pungle your questions and comments about words and how we use them.
Put them down in an email to words@waywordradio.org or call us 877-929-9673.
Re “puggle”, it’s identified as a baby echidna under the Wikipedia article for Echidna. Of course, it is Wikipedia, so who knows? On the other hand, a website called Australia Fauna takes the trouble to inform us that “puggle” isn’t a correct term for baby platypuses.