| Definitions | | sputter |
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noun
- Moist matter thrown out in small detached particles; also, confused and hasty speech.
verb
- 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. -Congreve.
- 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. -Dryden.
- (transitive) 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 last pretend incitement, to out the basest accusations. -Swift.
- (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
Etymology: From the root of spout or spit to eject from the mouth.
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