[-ING1.] The action of STUTTER v.
1594. Parsons, Confer. Success., I. viii. 168. Luys the second surnamed le begue, for his stuttering.
c. 1618. Moryson, Itin., IV. V. v. (1903), 482. Nicknames, given them from the Colour of their haire, from lameness, stuttering, diseases or villanous inclinations, which they disdayne not.
1741. Mrs. Montagu, Lett., I. 290. We must cure people of errors and lying, as they do of stuttering, by a long course of silence.
b. transf. and fig.
1665. Glanvill, Def. Van. Dogm., 85. Yea, and … persecuted them by his reproaches, calling the Philosophy of Empedocles, and all the Antients Stuttering.
1911. E. B. Osborn, in 19th Cent., Jan., 126. In the case of some of the older carillons the apparent hesitation or ‘stuttering’ (to use the bell-maker’s phrase), which is due to the imperfect mechanism, has a quaint and pleasing effect.
