What's the difference between mumble and utter?

Mumble


Definition:

  • (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.

Utter


Definition:

  • (a.) Outer.
  • (a.) Situated on the outside, or extreme limit; remote from the center; outer.
  • (a.) Complete; perfect; total; entire; absolute; as, utter ruin; utter darkness.
  • (a.) Peremptory; unconditional; unqualified; final; as, an utter refusal or denial.
  • (a.) To put forth or out; to reach out.
  • (a.) To dispose of in trade; to sell or vend.
  • (a.) hence, to put in circulation, as money; to put off, as currency; to cause to pass in trade; -- often used, specifically, of the issue of counterfeit notes or coins, forged or fraudulent documents, and the like; as, to utter coin or bank notes.
  • (a.) To give public expression to; to disclose; to publish; to speak; to pronounce.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In the experiments to be reported here, computer-averaged EMG data were obtained from PCA of native speakers of American English, Japanese, and Danish who uttered test words embedded in frame sentences.
  • (2) This study examined the frequency of occurrence of velar deviations in spontaneous single-word utterances over a 6-month period for 40 children who ranged in age from 1:11 (years:months) to 3:1 at the first observation.
  • (3) Her speech suggested the kind of Republican who would truly "raise the conversation", and if it seems like settling to want an opposition party to simply not be so utterly vindictive, well, yes, I will settle for that.
  • (4) Theresa May has shown a complete and utter lack of interest in Northern Ireland since taking office.
  • (5) The results of the present study focused on differences in types of self-touching by patients and physicians, semantic content of utterances when self-touching was displayed, and temporal location of self-touching within the speech stream.
  • (6) A single-subject design was applied to study increase in functional use of language by a 14-yr.-old Down Syndrome girl from a mean length of utterance of 1.3 words to 4.4 in a classroom, 5.1 in the restaurant, and 4.7 during transportation.
  • (7) The media is utterly self-obsessed and we get more ink than perhaps we should do.
  • (8) Instead, because of other people, it all too often becomes something else: a complete and utter hell.
  • (9) Three male and 2 female subjects produced six repetitions of 12 utterances that were initiated and terminated by vowels and consonants of differing phonetic features.
  • (10) The infant, who was utterly small for his gestational age, showed an aberrant motoric pattern and a high forehead, low-set ears, a prominent occiput and scoliosis, an extension defect in the knee joints and flexed, ulnar-deviated wrists.
  • (11) "How these union bosses get elected, how they raise money, how they disperse money is a complete and utter mystery.
  • (12) Thus in your own words you have said why it was utterly inappropriate for you to use the platform of a Pac hearing in this way.” He suggested that many professionals were “in despair at the lack of understanding and cheap haranguing which characterise your manner” after a series of hearings at which Hodge has led fierce interrogations of senior business figures and others.
  • (13) Much of the research dealing with linguistic dimensions in stuttering has emphasized the various aspects of grammar, particularly as these aspects contribute to the meaning of utterances.
  • (14) That's completely and utterly grotesque and, no matter how proud we all are in the labour movement that the minimum wage exists, not a single day goes by that we shouldn't be disgusted with ourselves for that.
  • (15) The changes in Parkinsonian subjects of the cross-sectional area during the utterance of sustained sounds are attributed to both Parkinsonian tremor and rigidity.
  • (16) Too distressed to utter more than a single word - "Devastated" - in the immediate aftermath of her withdrawal, a pale and red-eyed Radcliffe emerged yesterday to give her version of the events that ended the attempt to crown her career with a gold medal.
  • (17) Informed sources in Germany said Merkel was livid about the reports that the NSA had bugged her phone and was convinced, on the basis of a German intelligence investigation, that the reports were utterly substantiated.
  • (18) | Hugh Muir Read more Wherever Labour people gather to discuss how to break out of the vice tightening around the party, answers fail amid sighs of utter despair.
  • (19) The IFS says similar declines emerge if you set the figure as low as 40% of median income – utterly refuting Nick Clegg's toxic line dismissing the threshold as just "poverty plus a pound" .
  • (20) "Public sector workers and their families are utterly shocked by Jeremy Clarkson's revolting comments.