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🧥 To dress 🎭 To organize 🚗 To increase mileage ☕ To start heating ⚖️ To gain weight 🎶 To play music ➕ To add 😏 To trick
to put on

to put on

223 2.8
To organize and present an event or show
  • phrasal verb
  • /pʊt ɑn/
translation icon : organizar
  • Every summer, the local theater puts on a series of outdoor concerts for the community.
  • put on a show
  • put on a play
  • put on a performance

It's being strong for them and putting on this show.

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Examples

  • That's basically the people that put on Broadway shows.

    The Financial Diet

  • We'll put on the greatest military show the world has ever known!

    The Great Dictator (1940)

  • It's being strong for them and putting on this show.

    Emily Norris

  • You know, you can put on dinner parties and things like that.

  • All coming together to put on an insane event.

  • This is the company that put on the show Social Gloves.

  • Finally, as regards the Roman masses, be sure to put on a good show.

    Academic text (2012)

  • Red Triangle Circus put on a swell show last night, with fierce lions.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • I remember distinctly the amazing program put on by FIERCE members to inaugurate the project.

    Academic text (2012)

  • To celebrate the anniversary, they decided to put on a grand gala with live performances.

Synonyms

to arrange
vsto put on
814 2.0

To plan and organize something so it can happen

is about running or staging an event rather than just planning it
to organize
vsto put on
  • US
662 1.6

Arrange people, things, and activities so they work well

is focused on preparing and presenting a specific event or performance
to mount
vsto put on
114 4.3

To organize and start an event or campaign

is more about preparing and presenting an event rather than only starting it

Antonyms

cancel
1.0

No longer planned or scheduled

How Big

to produce
301 4.5
to mount
114 4.3
to stage
80 4.1
to put on
223 2.8
to hold
∞ 2.1

Surface Forms

put on infinitive
put on past
put on past participle
putting on present participle
puts on third person singular

Morphology

put + on

The basic sense 'to dress oneself' is directly derivable from combining 'put' (place) with 'on' (onto the body) and would be clear to a B1 learner who knows both words. However, extended senses like 'put on a show' (to stage/present) or idiomatic uses (e.g. 'put on' meaning to pretend) involve metaphorical extension and phrasal-verb idiosyncrasy that are not fully predictable without exposure.

Etymology

The phrasal verb put on meaning to organise a show comes from placing a performance 'on' a stage for people to see. You put the play on for an audience, so it means 'to present' or 'to run' an event.