Puppeteer

//ˌpʌpɪˈtɪə// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who uses a puppet.
  2. 2
    one who operates puppets or marionettes wordnet
  3. 3
    Someone who is manipulative and thus able to get people to do what they want or to make events develop in the way they want in a puppet-like manner. figuratively
Verb
  1. 1
    To control (a puppet). transitive
  2. 2
    To control (an event, person, or organization) from behind the scenes. figuratively, transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
controlpuppet master

Example

More examples

"The Puppeteer aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space sci-fi franchise secretly manipulate the human gene pool for the quality of luck."

Etymology

From puppet + -eer.

Related phrases

sock puppeteer

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.