Verb

(en verb)

* 1860 , (William Cullen Bryant), letter, 14 Sep 1860:

I saw Mr. Cairns yesterday. He inveighed at great length at what he called Mr. Willis's neglect of his children, saying he had just discovered that they got no whortleberries and no fish, and that he was just beginning to send them those things.

* 1989 , (Jack Vance), Madouc :

Noblemen loyal to King Milo inveighed upon him, until at last he sent off dispatches to King Audry and King Aillas, alerting them to the peculiar rash of forays, raids and provocations current along the Lyonesse border.

* 1999 , (Will Hutton), The Guardian , 26 Sep 1999:

Only last week, three aggressively written pamphlets crossed my desk inveighing against the euro.

* 2011 , Elizabeth Drew, "What were they thinking?", New York Review of Books , 18 Aug 2011:

After the President, in a press conference in late June, inveighed against tax breaks for corporate jets, the industry quickly insisted that such a change would cost jobs.

(obsolete) To draw in or away; to entice, inveigle.

* c. 1680 , (Samuel Butler), Genuine Remains :

He is a Spirit, that inveighs away a Man from himself, undertakes great Matters for him, and after fells him for a Slave.

Verb

(en verb)

To utter words, especially complaints or angry expressions, indistinctly or with a low voice and lips partly closed; to say under one's breath.

You could hear the students mutter as they were served sodden spaghetti, yet again, in the cafeteria.

The beggar muttered words of thanks, as passersby dropped coins in his cup.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=June 28 , author=Jamie Jackson , title=Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=This set – the set of Rosol's life – was studded with aces and menacing ground-strokes that left Nadal an impotent spectator often muttering to himself and at the umpire regarding a perceived misdemeanour by his opponent.}}

To speak softly and incoherently, or with imperfect articulations.

The asylum inmate muttered some doggerel about chains and pains to himself, over and over.

* Dryden

Meantime your filthy foreigner will stare, / And mutter to himself.

To make a sound with a low, rumbling noise.

April could hear the delivery van's engine muttering in the driveway.

* Alexander Pope

Thick lightnings flash, the muttering thunder rolls.