mutter

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As to the evil spirits, I've heard them myself--mutter, mutter, squeak, squeak, squeak!

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Definitions (15)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. intransitive verb To speak indistinctly in low tones.
  2. intransitive verb To complain or grumble morosely.
  3. transitive verb To utter or say in low indistinct tones.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

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Examples (50)

  • Then The- leb K'aarna would scowl and mutter, and Yishana would laugh at him and glance brightly at Elric.
  • The hard mutter which is the subject of the next extract embodies a difficulty that has perplexed many. —  Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel
  • Ours and theirs I thought I heard her mutter--scarcely a mutter, at that -- "Not again." —  F ;SF; - vol 098 issue 04 - April 2000
  • He was quite sensible that this ornament might as well be dispensed with; and his family often heard him mutter, after involuntarily performing it, "There goes the old shop again I {p.128} dwell on this matter because it was always his favorite tenet, in contradiction to what he called the cant of sonneteers, that there is no necessary connection between genius and an aversion or contempt for any of the common duties of life; he thought, on the contrary, that to spend some fair portion of every day in any matter of fact occupation is good for the higher faculties themselves in the upshot. —  Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10)
  • But after a while she began to toss and mutter, and then came those wild cries for Katie Robertson; that she had something to tell her; that she hadn't told a lie, for Katie was a thief When or how the change came the watcher hardly knew, but all at once she became aware that Bertie lay looking directly at her, and that there was full recognition in her eyes. —  Katie Robertson A Girls Story of Factory Life
 

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

mutterings ·  grunt ·  growl ·  mumble ·  glower ·  rustlings ·  insufflation ·  grimace

Used in the same contextWord Family

mutter:   mutters ·  muttered ·  muttering
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English muttren, possibly from Latin muttīre.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English muteren, moteren= German muttern (cf. Low German mustern, musseln), mutter, whisper; cf. Italian dial. muttire, call, Latin muttire, mutire, mutter; ult. imitative, like mum, murmur, etc.
  2. from mutter, v.
 

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/ˈmətər/
by American Heritage

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