chutter
chutter noun: an alarm call used by vervets to warn of the presence of a snake.
Noun
chutter (plural chutters)
- An alarm call used by vervets to warn of the presence of a snake.
- Vervet monkeys have several different sorts of call, including "leopard alarm barks," "eagle rraups," and "snake chutters" (Struhsaker, 1967).1985, Alison Jolly, The Evolution of Primate Behavior, page 75
- The vervet's main claim to fame, however, lies in its alarm calls, in which it distinguishes between different types of predator: a chutter warns of the presence of a snake; a rraup is uttered when an eagle is spotted; a chirp is used for lions[…]1995, Stanisław Puppel, The Biology of Language, page 3
Verb
chutter (third-person singular simple present chutters, present participle chuttering, simple past and past participle chuttered)
- To make an alarm call of this kind.
Forms of chutter
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | chutters |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | chutters |
| present participle | chuttering |
| past participle | chuttered |
| past | chuttered |
Origin of chutter
Imitative.
Questions about chutter
- What does chutter mean?
- Chutter means an alarm call used by vervets to warn of the presence of a snake.
- What part of speech is chutter?
- Chutter can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of chutter?
- The plural of chutter is chutters.
Words near chutter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chutter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “chutter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chutter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.