sputter
verbEtymology 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.
To emit saliva or spit from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking.
- 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!1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Lady Milborough as Ambassador”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 87:
Ambitransitive To speak so rapidly as to emit saliva; to utter words hastily and indistinctly, with a spluttering sound, as in rage.
- They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples.1700, William Congreve, The Way of the World:
- In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest and falsest accusations.1730, Jonathan Swift, A Vindication of Lord Carteret:
Ambitransitive 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.1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy:
Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics To cause surface atoms or electrons of a solid to be ejected by bombarding it with heavy atoms or ions.
Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics To coat the surface of an object by sputtering.
- Derived terms
- sputterable, sputter coating, sputterer, sputteringly, sputter out, sputtery, unsputtered
- Related terms
- spit nails