[f. prec.]
1. trans. To utter hastily and indistinctly. Also const. out.
1729. T. Cooke, Tales, etc. 119. Call them, without Reserve, Dog, Monkey, Owl, And splutter out at once Fish, Flesh, and Fowl.
1826. Lamb, Pop. Fallacies, vii. When he has been spluttering excellent broken sense for an hour together.
1850. Boker, Anne Boleyn, I. iii. And then shake heaven with angel merriment To hear you splutter—‘Lord, all this is ours!’
1870. Thornbury, Tour rd. Eng., II. xx. 62. King James spluttered out his alarm at Jesuit plots in clumsy Latin.
2. a. To scatter in small splashes.
1835. Politen. & Gd.-breed., 66. If you are eating soup, take care not to splutter it about.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, xlii. 232. Twirling the pen between his fingers, and spluttering the ink over the paper.
b. To bespatter (a person). Also fig.
a. 1869. C. Spence, Fr. Braes Carse, Poems (1898), 196. Ae jaw-hole [will] splutter fifty folk.
1901. N. & Q., 9th Ser. VIII. 401/1. His pen was busy spluttering detractors.
3. intr. To talk or speak hastily and confusedly.
1728. De Foe, Mem. Capt. Carleton, 64. There came in a Dutchman, spluttering and making a great Noise, that he was sure he could discover one of the Conspirators.
1828. Carr, Craven Gloss., Splutter, to speak fast and inarticulately.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, II. xx. (1883), 279. He could not even swear. He could only splutter.
4. To make a sputtering sound or sounds.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, vii. You may see Jobson on such occasions … puffing, strutting, and spluttering, to get the Justice put in motion.
1860. Thackeray, Round. Papers, Autour de mon Chapeau. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded;… while waning candles splutter in the sockets.
1878. Lady Brassey, Voy. in ‘Sunbeam,’ 17. A dozen of them spluttering and fighting for the coin in the water at the same time.
b. To go out with a sputter.
1906. Sir F. Treves, Highways Dorset, xii. 183. The attempt spluttered out like an over-fed candle.
5. Of a pen: To scatter ink in writing.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxxiii. A hard-nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter.
1863. Miss Braddon, J. Marchmont’s Legacy, II. iv. 90. You see if my pen doesn’t splutter, the moment I address Richard Paulette.
6. To fly in small splashes or pieces.
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, 17. The fragments spluttered up round my father’s legs.
1862. Gifts & Graces, xv. 156. She dropped her fat round cake … right into her cup of tea, the contents of which spluttered all over her bonnet-ribbons.
