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Sputter vs Hiss - What's the difference?

sputter | hiss | Related terms |

Hiss is a synonym of sputter.



In transitive terms the difference between sputter and hiss

is that sputter is to spit out hastily by quick, successive efforts, with a spluttering sound; to utter hastily and confusedly, without control over the organs of speech while hiss is to utter with a hissing sound.

As nouns the difference between sputter and hiss

is that sputter is moist matter thrown out in small detached particles; also, confused and hasty speech while hiss is a high-pitched sound made by a snake, cat, escaping steam, etc.

As verbs the difference between sputter and hiss

is that sputter is to spit, or to emit saliva from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking while hiss is to make a hissing sound.

sputter

English

Noun

(-)
  • Moist matter thrown out in small detached particles; also, confused and hasty speech.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To spit, or to emit saliva from the mouth in small, scattered portions, as in rapid speaking.
  • To utter words hastily and indistinctly; to speak so rapidly as to emit saliva.
  • * Congreve
    • They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • To sputter out the basest accusations.
  • To throw out anything, as little jets of steam, with a noise like that made by one sputtering.
  • * Dryden
    • Like the green wood sputtering in the flame.
  • To spit out hastily by quick, successive efforts, with a spluttering sound; to utter hastily and confusedly, without control over the organs of speech.
    • In the midst of caresses, and without the last pretend incitement, to sputter out the basest accusations. -Swift.
  • (physics) To cause surface atoms or electrons of a solid to be ejected by bombarding it with heavy atoms or ions
  • (physics) To coat the surface of an object by sputtering

    • See also

    * spit nails

    References

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    Anagrams

    *

    hiss

    English

    Noun

    (es)
  • A high-pitched sound made by a snake, cat, escaping steam, etc.
  • An expression of disapproval made to sound like the noise of a snake.

    • Verb

  • To make a hissing sound.
    • As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.
    The arrow hissed through the air.
  • * Wordsworth
    • Shod with steel, / We hissed along the polished ice.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=December 14 , author=John Elkington , title=John Elkington , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=It turns out that the driver of the red Ferrari that caused the crash wasn't, as I first guessed, a youngster, but a 60-year-old. Clearly, he had energy to spare, which was more than could be said about a panel I listened to around the same time as the crash. Indeed, someone hissed in my ear during a First Magazine awards ceremony in London's imposing Marlborough House on 7 December: "What we need is more old white men on the stage."}}
  • To condemn or express contempt for by hissing.
  • * Bible, Ezekiel xxvii. 36
    • The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee.
  • * Shakespeare
    • if the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them
  • To utter with a hissing sound.
  • * Tennyson
    • the long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise