[Imitative: cf. SPUTTER sb. Noted by Johnson as ‘a low word.’]
1. A noise or fuss.
1677. Miége, Fr. Dict., II. To keep a great splutter,… faire grand bruit.
1711. Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 8 Sept. What a splutter you keep, to convince me that Walls has no taste!
1735. Burdon, Pocket-Farrier, 70. What a splutter has Mr. Solleysell made in his Works.
1809. T. Donaldson, Poems, 33. Your comrades, Davie, when you’re dead, May raise an unco’splutter.
1893. in S. E. Worcester Gloss., 37.
b. Violent and confused declamation, discourse or talk; an instance of this.
1688. Vox Cleri Pro Rege, 6. After all this Splutter at the Churchmen and Clergy of England, he falls next to shoot his angry Bolts at the Collection.
1791. A. Wilson, in Poems & Lit. Prose (1876), II. 35. For gudesake whist!… Its nonsense a’ this splutter.
1858. Swinburne, Blake, 15. The only original work of its author … consisting mainly of mere wind and splutter.
1881. Huxley, in L. Huxley, Life, II. 33. Dinner … with a confused splutter of German to the neighbours on my right.
c. A controversy or dispute.
1838. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 109. He has had a splutter with Leigh Hunt.
2. A loud or violent sputter or splash.
1815. Scott, Guy M., i. About a rood of the simple masonry giving way in the splutter with which he passed.
1841. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, iv. Until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it.
1873. G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, ix. 68. A couple of ducks … made away with a great splutter.
fig. 1821. Lamb, Elia, I. Old Benchers Inn, Temple. Is the splutter of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as the little cool playful streams [etc.]?
1887. [see SPITFIRE sb. 1 b].
