SPUTTER • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Sputter

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/spˈətər/ Listen

verb

Sputter v. t. To spit out hastily by quick, successive efforts, with a spluttering sound; to utter hastily and confusedly, without control over the organs of speech. "In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest accusations."

Sputter v. i. (past & past part. sputtered; pres. part. sputtering)

To spit, or to emit saliva from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking.

To utter words hastily and indistinctly; to speak so rapidly as to emit saliva. "They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples."

To throw out anything, as little jets of steam, with a noise like that made by one sputtering. "Like the green wood... sputtering in the flame."

noun

Sputter n. Moist matter thrown out in small detached particles; also, confused and hasty speech.

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Etymology of 'Sputter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sputter" Quotes from Famous Books

... they choke and sputter and gasp, the big snow turns to horsepondine. With us it stays still: but wind, sun, and rain get to work upon it, lest the texture and colour should not change daily. Rain makes a granulated crust over all, in which ...

— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... 1685, broke very dark and windy, with dull clouds moving heavily across the sky and a constant sputter of rain. Yet a little after daybreak Monmouth's bugles were blowing in every quarter of the town, from Tone Bridge to Shuttern, and by the hour appointed the regiments had mustered, the roll had been called, and the vanguard ...

— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child's cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still ...

— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... gusty and tempestuous, and the moon was all girt with ragged clouds. The wind blew in melancholy gusts, sobbing and sighing over the moor, and setting all the gorse bushes agroaning. From time to time a little sputter of rain pattered up against the window-pane. I sat until near midnight, glancing over the fragment on immortality by Iamblichus, the Alexandrian platonist, of whom the Emperor Julian said that he was posterior to Plato in time but not in genius. At last, shutting up my book, I opened my ...

— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with little bottles of sulphuric acid. The splinter was expected to blaze when dipped into the acid. Sometimes it did blaze, and sometimes it did not; but it was reasonably certain how the acid would behave, for it would always sputter and do its best to spoil some one's clothes. Nevertheless, even such matches as these were regarded as a wonderful convenience, and were sold at five dollars a hundred. With the next kind of match that appeared, a piece of folded sandpaper ...

— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

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