punch

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A tool for circular or other piercing.
• noun A tool for forcing a pin, bolt, or rivet in or out of a hole.
• noun A tool for stamping a design on a surface.
• noun A tool for making a countersink.
• intransitive verb To make (a hole or opening), as by using a punch or similar implement.
• intransitive verb To pierce something; make a hole or opening.
• transitive verb To hit with a sharp blow of the fist.
• transitive verb To drive (the fist) into or through something.
• transitive verb To drive (a ball, for example) with the fist.
• transitive verb To make (a hole) by thrusting the fist.
• transitive verb Archaic To poke or prod with a stick.
• transitive verb Western US To herd (cattle).
• transitive verb To depress (the accelerator of a car) forcefully.
• transitive verb To depress (a key or button, for example) in order to activate a device or perform an operation.
• transitive verb To enter (data) by keying.
• transitive verb Baseball To hit (a ball) with a quick short swing.
• noun A blow with the fist.
• noun Impressive or effective force; impact. synonym: vigor.
• idiom (beat to the punch) To make the first decisive move.
• idiom (punch the clock) To register one's arrive or departure at a job.
• idiom (punch the clock) To be employed at a job with regular hours.
• noun A beverage of fruit juices and sometimes a soft drink or carbonated water, often spiced and mixed with a wine or liquor base.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To make a hole or holes in with a punch or some similar instrument; pierce; perforate: as, to punch a metal plate.
• To make with or as with a punch: as, to punch a hole in something.
• noun A blow, dig, or thrust, us with the fist, elbow, or knee: as, to give one a punch in the ribs or a punch on the head.
• Short and fat.
• noun A short, fat fellow.
• noun A short-legged, barrel-bodied horse, of an English draft-breed.
• noun A short humpbacked hook-nosed puppet, with a squeaking voice, the chief character in a street puppet-show called “Punch and Judy,” who strangles his child, beats his wife (Judy) to death, belabors a policeman, and does other tragical and outrageous things in a comical way.
• noun A drink commonly made with wine or spirits, and either water or some substitute, as a decoction of tea, and flavored with lemon-juice or lemon-peel and sugar.
• Same as punish.
• To give a blow, dig, or thrust to; beat with blows of the fist: as, to punch One on the head, or to punch one's head.
• noun A tool the working end of which is pointed, blunt, a continuous edge inclosing an area, or a pattern in relief or intaglio, and which acts either by pressure or percussion (applied in the direction of its longitudinal axis) to perforate or indent a solid material, or to drive out or in objects inserted in previously formed perforations or cavities.
• noun A tool used to force nail-heads below the surface.
• noun A stone-masons' chipping-tool; a puncheon.
• noun In surgery, an instrument used for extracting the stumps of teeth.
• noun In decorative art, a tool in the form of a bar, sometimes fitted with a handle and engraved at the end in a cross, concentric ring, or other device. It is used for impressing ornamental patterns upon clay or other plastic materials.
• noun The engraved model of a printing-type on the end of a steel rod: so called from its being punched in a copper bar which makes the matrix, or a reversed impression of the model.
• noun In carpentry, studding by which a roof is supported.
• noun In hydraulic engineering, a short length placed on the top of a pile to permit the monkey of a piledriver to bear upon it when it has been driven too low to be struck directly; a dolly.
• noun In coal-mining, same as pout.