as in to drool
to speak rapidly, inarticulately, and usually unintelligibly
she was so shocked that, for a moment, all she could do was sputter
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of sputter
Cerabyte uses sputtered 10nm ceramic layers on a glass substrate.
—
Thomas Coughlin, Forbes.com, 21 Jan. 2026
Squeeze the handle too lightly and the bottle would sputter and hiss but release nothing.
—Literary Hub, 20 Jan. 2026
Denver assembled with four minutes to play in regulation, down 27-23 after a true seesaw of a playoff game, its offense having once again sputtered to a halt in a season of fits and starts.
—Luca Evans, Denver Post, 17 Jan. 2026
When the time came for Alan Cumming to cease deliberations, Michael was reduced to sputtering epithets in random sequences.
—Joe Reid, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for sputter
Thomas Coughlin, Forbes.com, 21 Jan. 2026
Squeeze the handle too lightly and the bottle would sputter and hiss but release nothing.
—Literary Hub, 20 Jan. 2026
Denver assembled with four minutes to play in regulation, down 27-23 after a true seesaw of a playoff game, its offense having once again sputtered to a halt in a season of fits and starts.
—Luca Evans, Denver Post, 17 Jan. 2026
When the time came for Alan Cumming to cease deliberations, Michael was reduced to sputtering epithets in random sequences.
—Joe Reid, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for sputter
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sputter
Verb
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This indulgent treat already has fans drooling—and many Costco members have been running to their local bakeries to see if the Cookie Bar Cake is still in stock.—
Sophia Beams,
Better Homes & Gardens,
20 Jan. 2026
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That’s a job for Hankton, who will still have an immensely talented unit, one most coaches would drool over.—
Cameron Teague Robinson,
New York Times,
16 Jan. 2026
Verb
-
Vincent Hawkins was shouting at officers when one of them shot a tear gas canister at him.—
Natasha Korecki,
NBC news,
14 Feb. 2026
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In November, LaVine had an altercation with a Kings season ticket holder who shouted angrily at him during a timeout, criticizing his effort and defense in a viral video moment.—
Jason Anderson,
Sacbee.com,
14 Feb. 2026
Verb
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In his masterful first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, ghouls and spirits keep chattering away, as if at a corner barbershop, while Abraham Lincoln mourns his dead 11-year-old son, Willie.—
Pico Iyer,
Air Mail,
24 Jan. 2026
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Voices chattering in Yiddish mingle with clucking chickens, crowing roosters and accordion music drifting through a bustling outdoor market.—
Leslie Katz,
Forbes.com,
21 Jan. 2026
Verb
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The volume has gone up again since Ruben Amorim’s recent departure, muttering darkly about Gary Neville’s outside influence in particular.—
Daniel Taylor,
New York Times,
17 Jan. 2026
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The older lady who was muttering to herself in casting is there.—
Dalton Ross,
Entertainment Weekly,
16 Jan. 2026
Verb
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So far, he’s been spotted draped in a full-length, white fluffy coat and fire engine-red hat and gloves, watching the women’s downhill race, and casually chatting with onlookers at the curling mixed doubles, adorned in a zip-jacket emblazoned with Team USA players’ faces.—
Sheena McKenzie,
CNN Money,
11 Feb. 2026
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Our winter season continues with Adina Hoffman (recipient of a 2013 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction) chatting with Michael Kelleher about Georges Perec’s magical and mercurial and maddening An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, translated by Marc Lowenthal.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
11 Feb. 2026
Verb
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But when the disheveled, withdrawn ex-friend shows up in the locker room gibbering about an evil spirit, Sam is mortified, impulsively knocking to the ground the grungy-looking Mason jar that Tamira has been carrying around.—
Dennis Harvey,
Variety,
18 Sep. 2023
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For a while, police interest bent toward a Phud who had been warned he might be eliminated from the program, who had seemed almost exultant about the fire and gibbered gleefully about the media spotlight.—
New York Times,
New York Times,
13 Apr. 2018
Verb
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Her victory, however, is likely to further rattle China, Japan’s neighbor and biggest trade partner.—
Jessie Yeung,
CNN Money,
10 Feb. 2026
-
Anthropic, one of the more outspoken companies in the artificial intelligence space, rattled stocks with the seeming superpowers of its Claude chatbot, prompting a selloff across the software sector with potential obsolescence suddenly knocking at its door.—
Nick Lichtenberg,
Fortune,
9 Feb. 2026
Verb
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This has provided early confidence that 2026 will be a far cry from that stuttering start 12 years ago.—
Luke Smith,
New York Times,
27 Jan. 2026
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Sassy 009 was once a trio of classmates from Oslo: three cool, elusive voices swirling and stuttering against a gentle barrage of programmed ploinks, like club music by the jaded girls sitting at the back of the room.—
Kieran Press-Reynolds,
Pitchfork,
22 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Sputter.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sputter. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
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