sputter
English
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GA" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈspʌtɚ/
- Rhymes: -ʌtə(r)
Etymology
Probably representing Middle English *sputren, *sputrien, a frequentative form of Middle English sputen (“to spout, vomit”), equivalent to spout + -er. Cognate with Saterland Frisian spüttern (“to inject, spray, splash”), West Frisian sputterje (“to sputter”), Dutch sputteren (“to sputter”), Low German sputtern, spruttern (“to sprinkle”), German sprudeln (“to spout, squirt”). Compare splutter.
Noun
sputter (countable and uncountable, plural sputters)
Verb
sputter (third-person singular simple present sputters, present participle sputtering, simple past and past participle sputtered)
- (intransitive) To emit saliva or spit from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking.
- 1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Lady Milborough as Ambassador”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 87:
- The child [...] kicked, and crowed, and sputtered, when his mother took him, and put up his little fingers to clutch her hair, and was to her as a young god upon the earth. Nothing in the world had ever been created so beautiful, so joyous, so satisfactory, so divine!
- (transitive, intransitive) To speak so rapidly as to emit saliva; to utter words hastily and indistinctly, with a spluttering sound, as in rage.
- Congreve
- They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples.
- Jonathan Swift
- In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest accusations.
- Congreve
- (transitive, intransitive) To throw out anything, as little jets of steam, with a noise like that made by one sputtering.
- Dryden
- Like the green wood [...] sputtering in the flame.
- Dryden
- (physics, intransitive) To cause surface atoms or electrons of a solid to be ejected by bombarding it with heavy atoms or ions.
- (physics, transitive) To coat the surface of an object by sputtering.
Translations
to emit saliva or spit from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking
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to speak so rapidly as to emit saliva; to utter words hastily and indistinctly
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to cause surface atoms or electrons of a solid to be ejected by bombarding it with heavy atoms or ions
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to coat the surface of an object by sputtering
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See also
References
- “sputter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Anagrams
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ʌtə(r)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -er (verbal frequentative)
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English transitive verbs
- en:Physics