spatter

US/ˈspætɚ/

spatter verb: to splash (someone or something) with small droplets.

Verb

spatter (third-person singular simple present spatters, present participle spattering, simple past and past participle spattered)

(transitive) To splash (someone or something) with small droplets.
- When my wet chihuahua shook himself, I was spattered with smelly water.
- His axel-tree, and chariot wheeles, all spatterd with the blood
  Hurl’d from the steeds houes, and the strakes.c. 1611, George Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 20, p. 286
Synonyms:

spurt
(figuratively, transitive) To cover, or lie upon (something) by having been scattered, as if by splashing.
- […] she seem’d to have woven the Rainbow into a loose Robe, which being so rarified that she might be seen through it, and also spatter’d with radiant Jewells in the forms of Starrs […]1660, Nathaniel Ingelo, Bentivolio and Urania, London: Richard Marriot, Book 2, pp. 79-80
- The low, whitewashed houses between the red and green acacia trees are spattered with shell-holes […]1949, Arthur Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment, New York: Macmillan, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 218
Synonyms:

strew
(transitive) To distribute (a liquid) by sprinkling; to sprinkle around.
- to spatter blood
- Perhaps ev’n I, reserv’d by angry Fate
  The last sad Relick of my ruin’d State,
  (Dire Pomp of sov’reign Wretchedness!) must fall,
  And stain the Pavement of my regal Hall;
  Where famish’d Dogs, late Guardians of my Door,
  Shall lick their mangled Master’s spatter’d Gore.1720, Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintott, Volume 6, Book 22, lines 92-97, p. 7
Synonyms:

asperge, asperse, besprinkle, sprinkle
(figuratively, transitive) To send out or disperse (something) as if in droplets.
- The cabman spattered his few words of English.1922, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 12, in Aaron’s Rod, London: Martin Secker, page 139
- […] they had seen him, at the sound of the alarm, rush like a madman from his window in Gant’s shop, leaving the spattered fragments of a watch upon his desk […]1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, New York: Scribner, Part 1, Chapter 8, p. 74
(intransitive) To send out small droplets; to splash in small droplets (on or against something).
- Make sure the pieces of fish are dry before you put them into the hot oil so that it doesn’t spatter.
- they fondly thinking to allay
  Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit
  Chewd bitter Ashes, which th’ offended taste
  With spattering noise rejected:1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
(figuratively, obsolete, transitive) To injure by aspersion; to defame.
- Let envy spatter what it can,
  This Embryon will prove a man.1647, John Hall, “A Genethliacon to the Infant Muse of his dearest Friend” in Poems, London: J. Rothwell
- Why how now, Madam Flirt?
  If you thus must chatter;
  And are for flinging Dirt,
  Let’s try who best can spatter;1728, John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera, Dublin: George Risk et al., Act II, Scene 13, “Good-morrow, Gossip Joan,” p. 42
Synonyms:

asperse, denigrate, muddy, assassinate, backbite, badmouth, befoul, belibel, besmirch, besmear

Noun

spatter (plural spatters)

A spray or shower of droplets hitting a surface.
- As a rough Water-Dog, New-England’s Breed,
  Fresh plaister’d from some Pond with Mud and Weed,
  Round from his Fleece the dirty Puddle shakes
  Rejoicing in the Spatter that he makes:1763, Richard Bentley, Patriotism, a Mock-Heroic, London: M. Hinxman, Canto 5, pp. 65-66
- Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet sent back a continual spatter of mud.1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, Part 5, Chapter 1
A spot or spots of a substance spattered on a surface.
- There was what looked like a spatter of blood on one wall.
- […] I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief.1847, Emily Brontë, chapter 13, in Wuthering Heights
The sound of droplets hitting a surface.
- As Henry lay awake that first night the hiss and spatter of the rain against his window seemed to have a personal grudge against him.1917, Hugh Walpole, The Green Mirror, New York: George H. Doran, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 344
(figuratively) A burst or series of sounds resembling the sound of droplets hitting a surface.
- [Father Roman] had shriven many simple souls on the battlefields of the Republic, kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass, in the gloom of the forests, to hear the last confession with the smell of gunpowder smoke in his nostrils, the rattle of muskets, the hum and spatter of bullets...1904, Joseph Conrad, chapter 8, in Nostromo
- The rapid handing out of the diplomas brought frequent applause—bits, spatters, volleys, as the case might be.1919, Henry Blake Fuller, chapter 32, in Bertram Cope’s Year
(figuratively) A collection of objects scattered like droplets splashed onto a surface.
- The attendant had a droopy lower lip, a rust-tone complexion with a spatter of freckles across the cheekbones […]1988, Don DeLillo, Libra, New York: Viking, Part 2, “12 August,” p. 270
- It was untidy; the quarters of someone not used to looking after herself; to seat himself he removed the stained cup and plate and a spatter of envelopes, sheets of opened letters, withered apple-peel, old Sunday paper, from a chair.2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Penguin, published 2002, page 18

spatter meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

spatter in Urdu

بکھیرنا, پھیلانا

spatter in Bengali

to spatter, to squirt: ছিটকানো chiṭkano

spatter in Malayalam

bespatter, splash, splatter: തെറിപ്പിക്കുക, ചിതറിക്കുടയുക, ചിതറിവീഴ്ത്തുക, തളിക്കുക, ചിന്തുക, ചെളി തെറിപ്പിക്കുക

spatter in Kannada

ಸಿಡಿ, ಹಾರು

More languagesFewer languages

spatter in Arabic: ترشيش, طرطشة

Examples of spatter in a sentence

The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out.1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company...
He blew too hard and the tea spattered the skirt of Nurse Clock’s uniform.1965, William Trevor, chapter 8, in The Boarding House, King Penguin, published 1983, page 85:
Patches of light sifting through them [the trees] spattered the concrete walks with sunshine.1960, Flannery O’Conner, chapter 6, in The Violent Bear It Away, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2007:
Then they began to climb, steering to open uplands spattered with yellow cinquefoil […]1996, Guy Vanderhaeghe, chapter 19, in The Englishman’s Boy, New York: Anchor, page 178:

All 29 example sentences with spatter

Synonyms of spatter

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of spatter

Forms of spatter

Verb
third-person singular present	spatters
present participle	spattering
past participle	spattered
past	spattered
Noun
plural	spatters

Past tense of spatter: spattered

Origin of spatter

Probably from Middle Low German or Dutch spatten (“to spout, burst”) + -er (frequentative suffix). Related to spit (“saliva”).

Words formed from spatter

Phrases with spatter

spatter cones

Words that rhyme with spatter

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spatter

What does spatter mean?: Spatter means to splash (someone or something) with small droplets.
What is spatter in Urdu?: Spatter in Urdu is بکھیرنا, پھیلانا. See Spatter meaning in Urdu.
How do you use spatter in a sentence?: The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out.
What part of speech is spatter?: Spatter can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce spatter?: Spatter is pronounced /ˈspætɚ/ (US).
What is the past tense of spatter?: The past tense of spatter is spattered.

Words near spatter in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: spatter (page history and authors); spatter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ছিটকানো (Bengali) (page history and authors); spatter (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); spatter (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spatter.wav.

Cite this entry: “spatter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spatter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.