Perhaps the difference is that for some people, day-to-day activities such as gardening, cooking, parenting etc. ("puttering" does sound dismissive, now that you mention it) satisfy the need for a feeling of purpose, and for others they don't. It makes sense that purpose is going to look different for everyone. In addition to varying by person, I would imagine that what satisfies as purpose probably changes over a lifetime. My feeling from interactions with happy older people is that purpose gets smaller and closer to home over time, and as a result, contentment grows.
From my seat in cube world, it's hard to know what will feel like enough purpose in retirement. I'm a lawyer. Although there are plenty of non-purposeful activites in my job, I would say that there is usually at least one interaction every work day where I feel like I contributed to doing the right thing for someone, even if it was in a small way. I am super fortunate to have a unicorn job like that and it definitely wasn't always that way. I need to think hard about to what extent it is a part of my identity, as sol suggested. I'm genuinely not sure. Although, I do plan to always keep my license active because you never know when it's going to come in handy.
But even though my job feels important, it doesn't make me feel . . . peaceful. That feeling tends to come with things like watching my kids play, eating good food, being in beautiful places, creating things, reading, having good sex. I don't have that feeling as much as I would like right now. My hope is that retirement will include more opportunities to pursue that feeling. And maybe, at some point, peacefulness becomes its own purpose.