Word
stutter
Phoneticsstut·ter
US/ˈstətɝ/
UK/stˈʌtɐ/
Definition
n. a sudden, sharp, and short movement or sound. It is an old word that people rarely use today.
n. a sudden, sharp, and brief movement or sound. Archaic in modern usage, though it appears in historical texts and specific dialects.
Examples
“The horse gave a sudden stutter before it ran.”
“The old clock gave a loud stutter as the hour struck, waking everyone in the house.”
“The manuscript contains several instances of a mechanical stutter in the printing, suggesting the press was not properly maintained during the final stages of the run.”
Examples
simple
“The horse gave a sudden stutter before it ran.”
contextual
“The old clock gave a loud stutter as the hour struck, waking everyone in the house.”
complex
“The manuscript contains several instances of a mechanical stutter in the printing, suggesting the press was not properly maintained during the final stages of the run.”
Real-World Examples
“One parent explained the emotional toll on her child: "He was very out of control emotionally, having tantrums, and he developed a stutter.” “A fly trying to find the source gets the smell in stutters, from constantly shifting directions, with no guarantee that a next whiff is coming at all.” Etymology
From Middle English stutten, stoten (“stutter”); cognate with Dutch stotteren (“stutter”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/stutter