What's the difference between mutter and putter?

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."

Putter


Definition:

  • (n.) One who puts or plates.
  • (n.) Specifically, one who pushes the small wagons in a coal mine, and the like.
  • (v. i.) To act inefficiently or idly; to trifle; to potter.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Echocardiographic studies and radiological measurements of heart volume were performed in 30 female track athletes, 17 female shot-putters or javelin throwers, 12 nonathletic women and 8 female patients with arterial hypertension.
  • (2) Thomas Putter, director of Allianz Infrastructure, said this afternoon: "We believe that our offers fully reflect the value inherent in the business and we cannot justify an increase in our offers to our investors."
  • (3) On the poop deck of a party boat puttering slowly out into the Adriatic stands a gently balding and teetotal Canadian in studious specs and sandals.
  • (4) An economy that continues to putter along with high unemployment and mediocre growth will keep his approval ratings in negative territory.
  • (5) The Dow has puttered along at about a half-percentage-point down from Friday.
  • (6) Outside, the crowd puttered towards the exit, a recognisable song playing them out.
  • (7) smiles Jude Sayer, our guide to Norwich, as we stand by the river Wensum watching the motor boats puttering towards Wroxham.
  • (8) But before we do that, there's time to hand out a couple of minor gongs: The Award For The Team Top at Christmas Blowing It In The Most Spectacular Fashion: A few candidates for this, though no one has been top at the end of Christmas Day and finished outside the top four since 1972, with the exception of John Gregory's Aston Villa in 1998-99, who won just five of their 20 post Crimbo fixtures to putter sadly into sixth come May.
  • (9) He also found the sand on the 461-yard 10th, and again saved with the putter, by now his only friend.
  • (10) Under the guidance of PUTTER and REINEBOTH a first dispensary for tuberculous patients was established and became the prototype of similar institutions in Germany and other countries.
  • (11) In this paper the long term effect of conservative non-surgical treatment in two body-builders and one shot-putter is discussed, who reported the partial rupture while performing bench lifts with barbells.
  • (12) But, then I think about some of his expressed views about philosophers, especially in Small Gods and wonder what he really makes of us,” said South, citing Pratchett’s dictum that “whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it’s all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place.” “Of course, some of these observations hit close to home,” South added.
  • (13) The Australian also offered as good an argument as any for hideous, long-handled putters not really proving the answer to bother on the greens despite suggestions to the contrary.
  • (14) In almost every case, the regression functions for the shot-putters show an approximately linear relationship between the morphological variables and the result of the shot-putt.
  • (15) "At 18 you should putt well and he's a good putter.
  • (16) In the way that a scent lingers, I can still feel my Honda 125 puttering away while waves of heat from the endless sunshine and exhausts bounced to and fro between those venerable curving walls.
  • (17) In January, the website Grantland (which is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures , a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company ) published an article – ostensibly about the inventor of a golf putter – that resulted in a prurient quest to uncover the subject's trans status, and which may have contributed to the article's subject's suicide.
  • (18) A minute later Enriqué tries a curler but the execeution isn't as good as his imagination and it putters two yards wide.
  • (19) The New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams is also competing as she seeks to recover her best form after surgery.
  • (20) It is not a collective panic in the chancelleries of the west that Johnson might make some inappropriate joke about Putin’s chest muscles or Soviet-era female shot-putters at a time of heightened political tension.