punding

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noun

A human activity characterized by compulsive fascination with and performance of repetitive, mechanical tasks, such as assembling and disassembling, collecting, or sorting household objects.

“Punding may consist of activities such as collecting pebbles and lining them up as perfectly as possible, or disassembling doorknobs and putting them back together again.”

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Meanings

punding1

nounpunding (uncountable)
  1. uncountableA human activity characterized by compulsive fascination with and performance of repetitive, mechanical tasks, such as assembling and disassembling, collecting, or sorting household objects.

    Punding may consist of activities such as collecting pebbles and lining them up as perfectly as possible, or disassembling doorknobs and putting them back together again.

    1 more example

    What Pollan is describing here is a mild form of ‘punding’, a phenomenon first described by intravenous amphetamine addicts.

    2021 July, AJ Lees, “Never Mind the Neurobollocks”, in The Literary Review

punding2

noun
  1. archaicArchaic form of pudding.

Origin

A gerundial noun from the slang term to pund used by addicts, coined by Swedish forensic psychiatrist G. Rylander, in 1968. Folke Sjöqvist, Malcolm Tottie, editor (1969), “Clinical and Medico-criminological aspects of addiction to Central Stimulating Drugs”, in Abuse of central stimulants: Symposium arranged by the Swedish Committee on International Health Relations, Stockholm, November 25-27, 1968, Almqvist & Wiksell, page 257

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

punding. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punding

MLA

“punding.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punding. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “punding,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punding.

Source: punding on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.