v. [Echoic; cf. twitter, stutter; also OE. þoterian to howl, wail.] intr. To make the sputtering or shaking sound suggested by the word. Hence Thuttering ppl. a.
1884. Wood River Times (ID), 9 July, 2/1. They [the Democrats] felt that this alone would of itself imperil the success of the party at the ensuing election, and their thutterings and curses were loud and deep.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous (ed. Tauchn.), 12. Blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up … and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. Ibid. (1904), Traffics & Discov., 370. The old mill shook and the heavy stones thuttered on the grist.
1905. J. C. Lincoln, Partners of Tide, vii. 139. There boomed out of the dark a thuttering, shaking roar, that swelled to a shrick and died away—the voice of the great steam foghorn.
