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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Recent Examples of sputter
MoviePass sputtered in spectacular fashion and filed for bankruptcy before reemerging in 2023 with new ownership and a very different pricing model.
—
Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 6 Feb. 2025
The Nets shot 1-for-6 from the field with three turnovers in the first three minutes, and the night began to sputter out of control from there.
—C.j. Holmes, New York Daily News, 6 Feb. 2025
The late night comics are all going to sputter with rage and try to make a joke.
—Stephen Humphries, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Jan. 2025
The issue has hit a raw nerve when many people are feeling a sense of insecurity from China’s real estate downturn and sputtering consumer economy.
—Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sputter
Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 6 Feb. 2025
The Nets shot 1-for-6 from the field with three turnovers in the first three minutes, and the night began to sputter out of control from there.
—C.j. Holmes, New York Daily News, 6 Feb. 2025
The late night comics are all going to sputter with rage and try to make a joke.
—Stephen Humphries, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Jan. 2025
The issue has hit a raw nerve when many people are feeling a sense of insecurity from China’s real estate downturn and sputtering consumer economy.
—Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sputter
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sputter
Verb
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And more than 130 people said their therapist fell asleep during therapy — sometimes going so far as to start drooling or snoring.—
Christina Caron,
New York Times,
20 Feb. 2025
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Art Deco is enticing in art and in theaters, not so much in a home with drooling pets and messy toddlers.—
Amanda Lauren,
Forbes,
19 Dec. 2024
Verb
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Fans in their team jerseys waved flags, shouted for their countrymen and continued the ritual booing of the opposing national anthem that has become an nightly undercard for a tournament that was the return of NHL stars to the international scene after missing the last two Winter Olympics.—
Jimmy Golen,
Chicago Tribune,
21 Feb. 2025
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There’s plenty such wordplay in The Safe House, to the point that the movie can seem like a caricature of overeducated, perpetually growling Parisians shouting for social change, but too self-centered and comfortable in their bourgeois lifestyles to do anything drastic about it.—
Jordan Mintzer,
The Hollywood Reporter,
21 Feb. 2025
Verb
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Talk of the Chiefs’ AFC Championship Game meeting with the Bills, and KC’s attempt to record the first Super Bowl three-peat, has been secondary to chatter about the games being fixed in favor of the Chiefs.—
Pete Grathoff,
Kansas City Star,
26 Jan. 2025
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This is one of those AI existential risks that everyone is chattering about these days.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes,
19 Jan. 2025
Verb
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But unlike France — which has both Napoleonic history and darkly muttering existentialists wandering the streets of Paris to remind everyone just how bad things can get — we Americans have no natural immunity.—
Pat Beall,
Orlando Sentinel,
18 Feb. 2025
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Several people are pacing up and down the crowd muttering a headcount to themselves to figure out their number in line.—
Nick Robins-Early,
Vulture,
14 Feb. 2025
Verb
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Taxi drivers chat about it with passengers, doctors with patients, butchers with customers.—
Nicole Winfield,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb. 2025
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Celeb flutist Nestor Torres chatted with Miami Beach’s First Couple from the sidelines, inquiring as to what the insanity was all about.—
Miami Herald Archives,
Miami Herald,
20 Feb. 2025
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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Automaker Tesla’s revenue missed expectations in the fourth quarter, for instance, while chip giant Nvidia has been rattled by China’s AI startup DeepSeek .—
Jenni Reid,
CNBC,
18 Feb. 2025
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In the end, the concern about a glut of society types rattling their jewelry was misplaced.—
Jillian Sederholm,
EW.com,
18 Feb. 2025
Verb
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Later attempts in the same setting fared better, launching the game but throwing up a few moments of stuttering and artifacting.—
Matt Kamen,
WIRED,
22 Dec. 2024
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But performances have stuttered over the past couple of weeks.—
Sam Lee,
The Athletic,
5 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Sputter.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sputter. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.
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