punch1 /pʌntʃ/ ●●● S3 verb [transitive]
1 HIT to hit someone or something hard with your fist
If I don't hit someone on my fist but I hit someone far from my fist with the other means (for example, with a gun), isn't it against grammar but is it just against usage?
I quoted the definition to restrict the meaning of 'punch.'
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2 Answers
Neither. There are a lot more meanings of punch than you quote so your question starts from a false premise.
I can put a mark onto a sword with a metal punch.
I can drink a fruit punch.
I can use a gun to punch a hole in the bad man.
I think you might have a meaningful question to ask but what you did ask doesn’t mean anything.
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1Note that the middle example is not a different sense of "punch" but an etymologically unrelated word, that happens to have the same spelling and sound. A fruit punch comes from Hindi, meaning "5" (as they originally were a mix of five ingredients)– James KCommented Nov 28, 2020 at 7:49
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Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Commented Nov 28, 2020 at 17:37
A sentence can be grammatical but nonsensical or meaningless; perhaps the most famous example is "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously", made up by Noam Chomsky. It is grammatically well-formed: it obeys all the rules of English grammar (for instance the verb "sleep" agrees with the subject "ideas"), but what does it mean? Nothing as far as either I or Chomsky can tell.
Similarly a sentence like "He punched me with his hair" or "He punched me over the telephone" might be considered nonsensical, or interpreted in a metaphorical way. Punch typically refers to hitting with a fist, although it can be used for other similar motions, but it would require something hard that makes a firm impact (e.g. a hole punch, a leather punch, etc). It would be correct to say that the word "punch" is misused.
