Do people use “put someone down” to mean “drop someone off”?

Well the entry says British English so I can't speak for them, but it would be an odd phrase to hear in the US as "put someone down" is a euphemism for either killing someone or insulting them. I would ask the taxi to drop me off at the end of the road.

Nobody says this in the UK

In my experience, it's not really in use now in the UK. Drop someone off would be the go-to.

Not in the U.S. However, the definition does say it's a british phrase.

Not in AmE, that I've ever heard. "To put down" means either to set down something (or someone) that has been literally picked up, or in a metaphorical sense to mean insulted or denigrated.

I've never heard this in the UK.

Never heard it in my life

Never heard this in the UK; it’s certainly not a Scottish thing.

I've never heard it and I'm English. Putting someone down means physically putting them down after lifting them, degrading them or killing them. Nothing to do with giving someone a lift in a vehicle.

I would disagree and say I've heard this a fair bit. A cabbie would definitely say it.

“Put me down at the end of the road” is just fine, but it’s not a special prepositional verb form. It’s just normal “put me” plus the (maybe slightly odd but perfectly idiomatic) prepositional phrase “down at the end of the road”. I suspect whoever wrote this guide is not a native speaker and mis-parsed a sentence of this type - possibly because “down at”, although it acts as a single proposition, is two words.

I appear to be an outlier, but I’m AmEng-native and this sounds fine to me. I don’t know if I would say it myself, and if you asked me to define “put down” without context I would probably have said “disparage” or “euthanize”, but reading the example sentence, it looks perfectly okay to me.  However, reading the other comments, I seem to be the only one who thinks that. So don’t go by my opinion. Maybe it’s a phrase I picked up from reading dated books?

To put someone down to me means knocking them out or taking them to the floor in a fight. Or, to insult or demean them. I wouldn't use it to mean drop someone off somewhere, and I speak british english (Australian with lots of pommy family).

No Unless you are physically carrying/holding someone, eg playing with your kid then putting them down, you wouldn’t use it like that. Putting someone down can also mean to degrade/insult them Putting someone down, or more so something (as it usually regards animals) means to kill them in a ‘harmless’ manner/giving them the needle/lethal injection, though with a person, you could say drugging them or some form of stealthy kill that doesn’t face resistance could fall under putting someone down.

As an American, "putting someone down" means to kill them

I’ve heard it, but I think it’s specific to taxis. It’s probably only used by people who drive taxis or take them often.

I freaked out the first time I heard someone say, "We have to put the kids down now." My initial reaction was "Are they really saying what I think they're saying?" 😱 Then I learned that "putting the children down" meant "sending them to bed and tucking them in for the night." Whew! Can't parents come up with a better expression for this?

Brit born and bred here - "put someone down" is more commonly used for insulting someone e.g. "He put her down by saying she's had five husbands and only two of them hers." "Set down" is often used by drivers and passenger services e.g. "The bus set down passengers at stop B but did not pick any up." "Let me off here", "Drop me off here" would be common. It's not a totally unknown usage, but it's not common. It's also used for euthanising animals as others have noted - e.g. "My dog was hit by a car and was so badly injured he had to be put down."

Set me down, perhaps?

I’m from the US, and have never heard it used in that way

not american english usage. "put down" is used to ethanize a pet-example: we had to go to 24 hour vet last night to have our old kitty put down; to put a baby or small child to bed for nap or the night-example: shh! I just put the baby down; and finally, it's an idiom for an insult or disparaging remark, intended for the person to hear or hear about after the fact. a taxi driver takes me to where i've requested, then "lets me out." then i leave the taxi. in nyc, anyway.

No one in the US has ever used this phrase that way. I'm confident enough to say it absolutely.

you can "put someone down" the same way you "put down" an airplane. so you can insert your special operative, "putting him down" behind enemy lines. far more often, to "put someone down" is to denigrate them, just as you think.

No. Never heard that before

It’s very unusual. This is the 12th entry for ‘put down’ - in a dictionary, the most common meanings come first.

yes I might even have said you can put me down here but not in an awfully long time.

"put down" means euthanise (kill), so I would be rather concerned if someone said they would "put me down".

- "We had to put him down." - Euthanizing a pet. - "Putting someone down" - Insulting someone. - "Somebody's gonna have to put that snitch down." - Murdering someone who told on you. - "Put it down over there." - Landing a helicopter. - "Can you put the baby down?" - Nap time. - "Put me down for two." - Ordering girl scout cookies. - "Put me down!" - Someone is literally carrying you around, and you don't want them to be. I never realized how versatile this phrase is until just now.

Also agreeing with comments that in British English this would be a polite term for euthanising someone or something and does not fit this context at all. More common options would be “He asked the taxi to drop him off at the end of the road” “He asked the taxi to stop at the end of the road”

I wouldn't say that. But I'm from the US. Put sb down means killing them or insulting them.

If someone told me that, I'd tell him that his mother dresses him funny.

In Australia you might say it about a third person. "Oh, put Fred down at the corner and then go to the shops" but honestly we are far more likely to use drop. It wouldn't be wrong but would be a little odd. Usually put someone down means to make an insult about someone or to make their efforts seem Lee's than they are.

Not in the United States, no

Off the top of my head to me to put somebody down would mean to: 1. Insult them or make them feel bad about themselves. 2. To euthanise something. 3. To literally put someone down that you are carrying.

Native English speaker from Canada. “Put someone down” to me would mean either killing someone or insulting them. I’d never assume it would be used for a passenger exiting a car. I’d probably use the phrase “drop someone off” for that. I can’t speak for how common it would be in the UK, but I’d advise against using the phrase in other English speaking countries to minimize confusion.

No, when you put someone down, you kill them, usually in a humane manner

"Drop me off at the end of the road."

Never heard this use in this context, and have never used it

To me the only meaning of "put (a living thing) down" is to euthanaise something. I would say "drop off" in this context

Reminds me of [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kqdaX1Fp8s)

I can honestly say I've never heard someone say "put X down" anywhere when relating to human beings unless you're killing them lol

i would understand someone if they said it, but i would never say it myself. in fact, if i heard this anywhere other than the correct context, i would assume they were talking about killing someone

by the way, not that it’s relevant, the only time i would hear this phrase and think it was okay was if someone was taking a list of people and what they want to do, and i would say ‘put me down for that.’

Not often, but yes. It can also mean to insult someone.

I have heard this before yes, in the UK. "Just put me down here" you could say to a taxi driver, or someone giving you a lift. It's not super common, but I've both heard and used it.

I have never heard anyone say this if that helps. You would only say "put me down" if you were being carried.

I've heard it in use in the UK but it is really not common. Pretty archaic now.

In contrast to all the other Brits I _have_ heard this, but I wouldn't recommend adopting it. I think it's either very regional or very old.

I'm in the UK, from Australia. To me it means a) insult or b) euthanase (an animal)

NZ English and I would worry if the taxi driver was going to put me down at the end of the road. Maybe I have a faint recollection of it being used in this way, but even my 87 year old aunt just laughed at the phrase, so I'm going to say it's archaic at this point.

Fair enough, OP. You stumbled upon a dictionary definition Brits say is outdated. However, these questions are always funny to me. "Do people...?" Well, the British, if they are to be called "people" (I'm kidding!), appear to... Maybe a better sort of framing for these questions would be, "Is this word commonly used in this format?" Because if it's in the dictionary, it was definitely used at one point, but perhaps not now. They don't make random definitions up to put in dictionaries. How do dictionaries in other countries work? I don't know...they seem to work differently, considering how many english learners seem to distrust them when asking questions on this forum...

It's definition 12 which makes me assume it's fairly uncommon or old-fashioned, as most of the replies here indicate. Edit: I used some Google fu, and found that it was definition 12 of 12, the least common, and I'm not surprised at all. However, it's from a very reputable source so the lexicographers must have found it somewhere in the wild and they didn't just randomly make it up.

Never heard of it. Vaguely aware of some dialects in Florida using it

Some people think they get into a car, others think they get onto a car. It’s always been this way.

We say "decrease me there" or "leave me alone"