sputter

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Moist matter thrown out in small detached particles.
2. (countable, uncountable)Confused and hasty speech.

verb

1. (intransitive)To emit saliva or spit from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking.

   “The child [...] kicked, and crowed, and sputtered, when his mother took him, and put up his little fingers to clutch her hair, and was to her as a young god upon the earth. Nothing in the world had ever been created so beautiful, so joyous, so satisfactory, so divine!”

2. (ambitransitive)To speak so rapidly as to emit saliva; to utter words hastily and indistinctly, with a spluttering sound, as in rage.

   “They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples.”

   “In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest and falsest accusations.”

3. (ambitransitive)To throw out anything, as little jets of steam, with a noise like that made by one sputtering.

   “Like the green wood [...] sputtering in the flame.”

4. (intransitive)To cause surface atoms or electrons of a solid to be ejected by bombarding it with heavy atoms or ions.
5. (transitive)To coat the surface of an object by sputtering.