Perdosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires, got one feeble sputter, and a tremendous bang which blew up his piece, leaving only the stock in his hand.

That rouses the sense of individuality in them and they then fight for their ways and ideasthen there's boil and bubble and sputter and flying apart.

Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like those apples of asphaltes and bitumen.

After a half-hour more of uncomfortable tension the engines began to sputter, the propellers revolved, andwe were safe!

" The Captain hoped she would presently sputter herself out.

The Scout Officer soliloquises: The lights begin to leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!

V. be discontinuous &c adj.; alternate, intermit, sputter, stop and start, hesitate. discontinue, pause, interrupt; intervene; break, break in upon, break off; interpose &c 228; break the thread, snap the thread; disconnect &c (disjoin) 44; dissever.

disgorge; expectorate, clear the throat, hawk, spit, sputter, splutter, slobber, drivel, slaver, slabber^; eructate; drool. unpack, unlade, unload, unship, offload; break bulk; dump. be let out. spew forth, erupt, ooze &c (emerge) 295.

Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like those apples of Asphaltes and bitumen.

A yellow sputter of flame followed, and the next instant he was holding it to the pile of litter which had been previously soaked by the contents of the Norwegian's can.

An actual flash; the crackle and sputter of a match!

When no more bulbs could be found, the baskets were put on the ground in groups, and the mothers carefully leaned their bickooses against them in such positions that the wide awake papooses could look out from under their shades and smile and sputter at each other in quaint Indian baby-talk; and the sleeping could sleep on undisturbed.

As few things are equally wearisome, so few are equally wasteful, with a perpetual indistinct sputter of action, whereby nothing is done and nothing let alone.

Boys will no longer sputter and fume like an over-toasted apple; but, even the cares of childhood will be smoothed into peace; by which means good humour may not be so rare a quality among men.

The exhaust of a gas engine began to sputter through the boat's side.

"She's the kind that won't sputter it all out, as I should; she'll cry herself sick over it!"

When at last he was roused by a fresh sputter of musketry fire from the woods the sun was already low in the heavens, and the mellow light of evening tinged the bare walls of the room.

Half dreaming, he heard the sharp sputter of a launchbearing belated comers to the ball, no doubtbut he paid no attention to it.

" He switched on the electric current, and the apparatus began to sputter.

Was it by accident or design that as he reached the table he threw his broad-brimmed hat, down with such an unnecessary flourish of the arm that he knocked over one of the heavy pewter candlesticks, so that it rolled down upon the floor, causing the tallow candle to sputter and die out with a weird and hissing sound?

He thinks the revolution of the Chinese against the Manchu Government is going to be something far more serious this time than a flutter of fans and a sputter of shooting-crackers.

First, I would advise him, if it be not too late in his life, to endeavour a little at mending his style, which is mighty defective in the circumstances of grammar, propriety, politeness, and smoothness; I fancied at first, it might be owing to the prevalence of his passion, as people sputter out nonsense for haste when they are in a rage.

As drops of water sputter from the mill-wheel, so sunbeams shoot out from the spokes of the sun-wheel" (M. Abeghian, Der armenische Volksglaube, Leipsic, 1899, p. 41).

The infantry blaze and sputter at one another in front; the guns roar behind; and that is all there is to be said about it.

As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive sniffling.