(v.) To speak with the lips partly closed, so as to render the sounds inarticulate and imperfect; to utter words in a grumbling indistinct manner, indicating discontent or displeasure; to mutter.
(v.) To chew something gently with closed lips.
(v. t.) To utter with a low, inarticulate voice.
(v. t.) To chew or bite gently, as one without teeth.
(v. t.) To suppress, or utter imperfectly.
Example Sentences:
(1) Although mumbling is frustrating and annoying at times, it may be a helpful clue to some of the client's most anxiety-provoking thoughts or feelings.
(2) Following a string of controversies about offensive remarks, Clarkson was put on final warning by the BBC in May, after unbroadcast Top Gear footage of him mumbling the N-word during the rhyme “Eeny, meeny, miny moe” was leaked.
(3) A very inebriated Emin mumbled incoherently that "no real people" would be watching and that she wanted to go be with her mum and friends.
(4) In the footage, published on the newspaper's website , Clarkson appears to recite the beginning of the children's nursery rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe..." before appearing to mumble: "Catch a nigger by his toe."
(5) Even the most fervent haters of the BBC can only mutter and mumble when Attenborough productions are mentioned.
(6) Matt Dobson, senior forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said the southern half of the UK had seen the worst weather, with a gust of 71mph recorded in Mumbles in the Gower peninsula, south Wales, as well of 45 to 55mph winds further inland.
(7) Of course, we’ve all mumbled the chorus of a pop song into our sternums when we’ve forgotten the exact words, but then, we probably didn’t have an audience of millions watching.
(8) It's a shame, I thought they would be out a lot earlier," she mumbles.
(9) It's a style that would find a naturally receptive audience in Austin (birthplace of mumble-core), among a crowd raised on American neo-realism.
(10) Harris, who was at the centre of a storm around recent BBC1 drama Jamaica Inn after viewers complained that they could not understand the dialogue, made light of the incident, telling the audience as he accepted his award: "Try not to mumble, try and speak clearly."
(11) In truth I found it a bit shamrocky Oirish but mumble it was fine.
(12) A lot of women have the idea that IUD, IUS and also injectables can affect future fertility in the long term, and there is really no evidence for that.” Mumbled misinformation aside, long-acting reversible contraception has a trump card, as one IUS-using friend put it: “Once it is installed in your body, you can’t not take it, so it gets rid of that pesky human error.” It’s a thought that has struck policy-makers, too.
(13) It was also, crucially, the first step in the shift away from the Winehouse of common caricature, the Olive Oyl figure with the beehive, and the drug abuse, the saucy mouth and the baleful talk of "Blake Incarcerated"; the artist people had sadly come to expect – who had once offered to lamp a member of the audience at Glastonbury, and who had last graced a stage at a festival in Serbia, where she stood swaying and mumbling before a baying audience of 20,000.
(14) The death sentence handed down to 529 protesters by an Egyptian court ( Report , 24 March) should have produced much more than mumbled regret from the British government.
(15) There are private mumblings that Miliband is not a winner.
(16) I wandered down to the local shop, and mumbled something about cigarettes, and was served: it wasn't until a day or two later that I realised my speech had become a bit buggered-about-with as well.
(17) Pellegrini, riled by Mourinho's dash across his box, hardly offered a vote of confidence in his later mumbled assessment.
(18) The rituals are well known – the cursory phone call, or brief summons to No 10, an expression of half-felt gratitude, and a mumbled explanation about the need to find space for new faces, and, if the departing minister is lucky, an exchange of public correspondence thanking them for their work on the reform of local government finance, coupled with a private promise of a seat in the unreformed Lords.
(19) We shuffled uneasily and mumbled our responses awkwardly.
(20) The lords of misrule will not be overthrown by mumbling.
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."