From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishstutterstut‧ter1 /ˈstʌtə $ -ər/ verb 1 [intransitive, transitive]SPEAK A LANGUAGE to speak with difficulty because you cannot stop yourself from repeating the first consonant of some words → stammer ‘I’m D-d-david, ’ he stuttered.► see thesaurus at say2 [intransitive]SOUND if a machine stutters, it keeps making little noises and does not work smoothly a refrigerator which stuttered and hummed→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
stutter• Other children often teased me because I stuttered.• Now he raised his hand, but when Mason called on him Boris began to stutter.• That night I began to stutter.• The engine was stuttering and cutting out.• There was a small refrigerator which stuttered and hummed in the night, and some kitchen things.• Carter stuttered as a child and burns now with an eloquence that takes him over from time to time.• Savio, a shy man who stuttered before small groups, was riveting and compelling when he spoke to thousands.• A string of shots stuttered nearby.stutterstutter2 noun [singular] SPEAK A LANGUAGEan inability to speak normally because you stutter SYN stammer a nervous stutterExamples from the Corpus
stutter• I played a character in Birmingham with a limp and a stutter and they said I was overdoing it.• A biology student with a stutter now occupied the back room.• You can't hear Ron's stutter when he sings.• Herman Katz was a thin, youngish man with nervous eyes and a slight stutter.• Despite a terrible stutter, he emerged as a gifted teacher.Origin stutter1 (1500-1600) stut “to stutter” ((14-19 centuries)) 