Wiktionary
vb. 1 To preserve food by canning, freeze, drying, etc. 2 To perform an action without attracting attention. 3 To save money. 4 To run a ship aground intentionally to avoid a collision
Usage examples of "put by".
The average consumption of tea, a highly nourishing combination in the severe Tibetan climate, was put by one observer as high as forty to fifty cupfuls a day with some drinking perhaps as few as twenty and others as many as eighty.
Nearly all of my written communications to Nero Wolfe over the years had been on a sheet of a memo pad, for Fritz to take up to his room on his breakfast tray, or put by me on his desk when he was upstairs in bed and I had returned from an evening errand.
The question could not have been more deliberately and thoughtfully put by the Doctor himself.
He therefore divided it in half, and a portion made an excellent meal for Ned and his aunt, the remaining being carefully put by for the following day.
Even Nan did not know all the hard work and stern self-denial that had made it possible for Theodore to put by that money out of his small earnings.
I had chores to do, wood to stack, fish to put by, and a roof to mend.
It might explain why the guards had sat at this end of the room, or perhaps the prisoner had been put by the door so they would look him over every time they came and went.