stutters

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular present of stutter.

   She stutters whenever she has to speak in front of the whole class.

   The projector stutters every time someone walks across the room.

   Note

   The present-tense form for he, she, it or a single named subject, while I, you, we and they take the bare stutter. The verb works with or without an object: she stutters on the first word, or she stutters out an apology, with the words themselves as the object. A narrower intransitive use describes gas being forced out with difficulty.

   He stutters an apology and hurries out of the room.

   Every time she is called on, she stutters on the first word.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of stutter.

   Her speech was broken by frequent stutters whenever she felt nervous.

   The recording captured several stutters in his opening remarks.

   Note

   The countable side of a word that also names a condition. In the singular, stutter can mean the disorder itself, while stutters counts separate breaks in speech that a listener could tick off one by one. An older use, now obsolete, made a stutter a person who stutters, so stutters once could mean the speakers themselves. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb form.

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