spatter

1. (transitive) To splash (someone or something) with small droplets.Examples: "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."; "The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out."Synonyms: spurttransitive

2. (transitive, figuratively) To cover, or lie upon (something) by having been scattered, as if by splashing.Examples: "[…] 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 […]"; "The low, whitewashed houses between the red and green acacia trees are spattered with shell-holes […]"; "1955, Samuel Beckett and Patrick Bowles (translators), Molloy by Samuel Beckett, in Three Novels, London: Calder, 1994, p. 128, The roof’s serrated ridge, the single chimney-stack with its four flues, stood out faintly against the sky spattered with a few dim stars."Synonyms: strewfigurativelytransitive

3. (transitive) To distribute (a liquid) by sprinkling; to sprinkle around.Examples: "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."; "O God, that I were in some wide field With nothing but my battle-axe and him To spatter his brains!"transitive

4. (transitive, figurative) To send out or disperse (something) as if in droplets.Examples: "The cabman spattered his few words of English."; "[…] 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 […]"; "[…] a man with a machine gun sits in a cage suspended from the ceiling and moving like a trolley spatters bullets into the cells."figurativelytransitive

5. (intransitive) To send out small droplets; to splash in small droplets (on or against something).Examples: "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:"; "Where the headquarters tent sags, water drips down and spatters on the table."intransitive

6. (obsolete, transitive, figurative) To injure by aspersion; to defame.Examples: "1647, John Hall, “A Genethliacon to the Infant Muse of his dearest Friend” in Poems, London: J. Rothwell, Let envy spatter what it can, This Embryon will prove a man."; "1728, John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera, Dublin: George Risk et al., Act II, Scene 13, “Good-morrow, Gossip Joan,” p. 42, Why how now, Madam Flirt? If you thus must chatter; And are for flinging Dirt, Let’s try who best can spatter;"; "1770, George Saville Carey, “To a Friend” in Analects in Verse and Prose, London: P. Shatwell et al., Volume 2, p. 171, I Wrote a letter long ago, But did not like it, you must know, So rather chose to take my time, And write my own defence in rhime, Though not in your be-crabbed stile, To spatter, threaten, and revile;"figurativelyobsoletetransitive