What's the difference between grunt and mutter?

Grunt


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make a deep, short noise, as a hog; to utter a short groan or a deep guttural sound.
  • (n.) A deep, guttural sound, as of a hog.
  • (n.) Any one of several species of American food fishes, of the genus Haemulon, allied to the snappers, as, the black grunt (A. Plumieri), and the redmouth grunt (H. aurolineatus), of the Southern United States; -- also applied to allied species of the genera Pomadasys, Orthopristis, and Pristopoma. Called also pigfish, squirrel fish, and grunter; -- so called from the noise it makes when taken.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Despite repeated attempts to contact it from the ground, Phobos-Grunt remained stuck in orbit and the Russian authorities decided to abandon the mission.
  • (2) I seesaw-grunted out of bed at 8.30am and had a bird bath, soaping mainly the naughty bits, for I was in a hurry that Wednesday: it was the day I filed my Observer TV review.
  • (3) Three of the four sows showed a characteristic increase in rate of grunting about 20 to 25 sec before fast sucking began.
  • (4) Grunting usually ceased within 15 minutes of the start of C.P.A.P., and there was also on average a 30 percent increase in the respiratory-rate.
  • (5) he grunts - reliving the moment when, in his first fight with Ali at Madison Square Garden in 1971, he knocked down his then unbeaten opponent to clinch a momentous victory.
  • (6) Wild Words of Sport (@WWofSport) @Simon_Burnton Nadal, with his caveman grunting, his undie-picking, is a visceral beast.
  • (7) Territorial males produce grunts, moans and growls during courtship.
  • (8) Spall's performance has been much celebrated for its emotional depth, despite Turner's vocabulary in the film often consisting of grunts, snorts and spitting saliva onto the canvas.
  • (9) Specific, highly predictive (though less common) signs included moderate to severe chest wall recession, respiratory grunt, cold calves, and a tender abdomen.
  • (10) When the newborn is no longer capable of the excess extra work required for grunting, the decompensated phase of IRDS sets in.
  • (11) After all, two Phobos probes had failed in 1988, plans to launch Phobos-Grunt in 2009 were abandoned very late in the day and Russia has not launched its own planetary mission since 1996 when Mars-96 burnt up over the Pacific and South America after a rocket failure.
  • (12) Insiders played down the significance of the move, saying that Entwistle had wanted somebody to help him with the "grunt work" of examining the BBC's internal data, leaving him free for face-to face-meetings.
  • (13) This suggests that the change in grunting is one but not the only cue used by the piglets to time their suckling behavior.
  • (14) We do not know precisely the postconceptual age at which the newborn is sufficiently developed to adopt these various defensive strategies of breathing, but the presence of tachypnea and grunting in 28-week-old premature infants suggests that long before term the human infant is capable of remarkable variation in the defense of breathing.
  • (15) When they left, [when] both police officers and Ms Dhu went out to the waiting room, I said to the police officer that, ‘this could be withdrawal from drugs’.” She said Ms Dhu was moaning and grunting, but considered those noises to be “voluntary” and more a signal of emotional distress than pain.
  • (16) This is a genuine and unexpected pleasure; getting more than a grunt from Arran is usually a task akin to ... well, getting a teenage boy to have a conversation.
  • (17) Somehow, though, this Carry On, if slightly punchy, seaside resort is as rock-solidly English as a jaw-jutting bloke in a pub who might just grunt "You looking at my caravan?"
  • (18) Hitching a ride on the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft is China's first interplanetary probe, the tiny 115kg Yinghuo-1 , which is due to work alongside Phobos-Grunt to study the Martian atmosphere.
  • (19) Ahead, a stripy piglet trots faster, swerves and gallops up the bank towards its mother’s summoning grunts.
  • (20) In the first case we are dealing with an eight year old boy who made grunting noises.

Mutter


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To utter words indistinctly or with a low voice and lips partly closed; esp., to utter indistinct complaints or angry expressions; to grumble; to growl.
  • (v. i.) To sound with a low, rumbling noise.
  • (v. t.) To utter with imperfect articulations, or with a low voice; as, to mutter threats.
  • (n.) Repressed or obscure utterance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When accused of muttering it while reciting Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo, during filming of BBC2s Top Gear, he said he had not, that he would absolutely never use "the most racist word of them all".
  • (2) It's the kind of TV that makes for a wipe-your-weekend-plans box set: the ending of every crack-fix of an episode had me twitchily reaching for the remote to a muttered internal monologue of: "Next one, next one, now, now…" Danes carries the series as the bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison, whose furious vigilance is hard to distinguish from pathological mania as she investigates, and ultimately falls for, Sergeant Brody (Damian Lewis), a Marine who may or may not be a terrorist after eight years held captive by al-Qaida.
  • (3) Brownites used to mutter bitterly about their hero for failing to compete with Tony Blair after the death of John Smith.
  • (4) And that voice like a whip-crack: impish, transgressive, swooping from a mutter to a scream.
  • (5) Sampson became the discreet, muttering centre of a web, connected by telephone and letter, telegram and fax, to an astounding cast of world leaders and commentarians, film stars and novelists.
  • (6) For what it's worth, Labour lost on a whopping great 18% swing to the Tories, yet despite an awful lot of muttering absolutely nothing happened.
  • (7) True, he has trounced them so thoroughly that any mutterings of future challenges are an empty blast of sour breath.
  • (8) Two years as a minister is plenty of time to stack up enemies, or at least a few mutterings that you’ve made a hash of the job.
  • (9) Obviously it should be scoffed down in a box set, like a Supersize V Superskinny obese person's enormo-breakfast, before a period of lying green-faced in a darkened room, listening to experimental jazz, muttering, "Carrie can't let another mistake happen!
  • (10) "It's going to destroy property prices in this area," muttered one.
  • (11) As he checks the woman’s heart with a stethoscope, he explains exactly what is about to happen to her – the nurses will hook her up to an EKG machine, among other procedures – and gets the woman to lie down, still muttering at the original nurse but pliable.
  • (12) "Any politician that claims to you that they're an ordinary person is not telling you the truth," Miliband mutters, half smiling and wincing.
  • (13) Even the most fervent haters of the BBC can only mutter and mumble when Attenborough productions are mentioned.
  • (14) It was a misjudgment in the heat of the moment.” The forlorn-looking Formula One world champion muttered: “I can’t really express the way I’m feeling at the moment so I won’t attempt to.
  • (15) Not via muttering idiots, but upfront, with an acrid twist.
  • (16) He’s not just a straight-talker, he’s a man who reliably says the things politicians dream their opponents will be caught muttering within range of forgotten radio-mics – except he declaims them on a podium in front of thousands.
  • (17) ", seconds before splashing about in the sub-zero Atlantic muttering "bugger".
  • (18) Bit of muttering about justifying selling one's own grandmother Updated at 1.21pm BST 1.06pm BST As Barb Jacobson, of the European Citizen's initiative for a basic income, puts it, a basic income should be high enough for everyone to have a dignified life in society, and to take part in society.
  • (19) One woman muttered angrily to her companion: "It is the dumbing down of America."
  • (20) Some of the mutterings from Threadneedle Street are not the stuff to give the troops."