spatter
Americanverb (used with object)
-
spatters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
spattered,
past participle, past
-
spattering
present participle
-
to scatter or dash in small particles or drops.
The dog spattered mud on everyone when he shook himself.
-
to splash with something in small particles.
to spatter the ground with water.
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to sprinkle or spot with something that soils or stains.
verb (used without object)
-
spatters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
spattered,
past participle, past
-
spattering
present participle
-
to send out small particles or drops, as falling water.
rain spattering on a tin roof.
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to strike a surface in or as in a shower, as bullets.
noun
-
the act or the sound of spattering.
the spatter of rain on a roof.
-
a splash or spot of something spattered.
verb
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to scatter or splash (a substance, esp a liquid) or (of a substance) to splash (something) in scattered drops
to spatter mud on the car
mud spattered in her face
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(tr) to sprinkle, cover, or spot (with a liquid)
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(tr) to slander or defame
-
(intr) to shower or rain down
bullets spattered around them
noun
-
the sound of something spattering
-
something spattered, such as a spot or splash
-
the act or an instance of spattering
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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spattersimple
-
spatterssimple
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have spatteredperfect
-
has spatteredperfect
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am spatteringprogressive
-
are spatteringprogressive
-
is spatteringprogressive
-
have been spatteringperfect progressive
-
has been spatteringperfect progressive
Past
-
spatteredsimple
-
had spatteredperfect
-
was spatteringprogressive
-
were spatteringprogressive
-
had been spatteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of spatter
1575–85; perhaps < Dutch spatt ( en ) to splash + -er 6; compare Dutch spatterig literally, spattery
Explanation
If you spatter something, you splash it with tiny drops of a liquid, like the way the artist Jackson Pollock dripped and spattered paint across a large canvas. You can spatter sauce across your stretched-out pizza dough, and you can also listen to rain spatter against the windows during a storm. Spatter can describe the splashing of a substance, like paint on a piece of wood, or the sound something makes, like the spatter of pebbles against the side of the shed. Experts believe spatter comes from the imitative Low German verb spatten, "to spout or burst."
Vocabulary lists containing spatter
Charlotte's Web
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Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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My Brother Sam is Dead
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We don’t have photographs, site plans, measurements, the recovery of projectiles, blood spatter analysis, all of those things we would normally get at a crime scene.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026
In Alameda County, inspectors found weld spatter waste, which sometimes contains copper, along with paint mix, used wipes with primer and other hazardous waste dumped into ordinary trash containers at Tesla’s Fremont factory.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
In the defense’s defense, there isn’t strong physical evidence—blood spatter on clothing, fingerprints or footprints, or a definitive murder weapon—tying Alex Murdaugh to the killings.
From Slate ● Feb. 27, 2023
They also say that documents turned over by prosecutors in discovery suggest that the areas of the shirt where blood spatter could have been present tested negative for blood.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2023
Moments later shadows moved like spatter paint along the walls, catching the light when they passed the window so I could see the outline of wings.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
But the big challenge is that metal parts created with additive manufacturing have defects -- like pores, or "voids," rough surfaces and large spatters -- that significantly compromise the finished part's reliability and durability.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 22, 2024
It's hard to look fashionable in a Christmas jumper covered in mince pie crumbs and spatters of mulled wine, so we're not here to make anybody feel bad this festive season.
From BBC ● Dec. 27, 2023
The forensic minutiae are duly intriguing: Blood spatters are closely analyzed, timetables meticulously reconstructed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2023
Bloodstain-pattern analysis is a forensic discipline whose practitioners regard the drops, spatters and trails of blood at a crime scene as clues that can sometimes be used to reconstruct and even reverse-engineer the crime itself.
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2023
It’s wet from something that spatters my leg below my shorts.
From "Liar & Spy" by Rebecca Stead
The house’s roof, the front steps and the driveway were spattered with white blotches, as if the area had been the site of a fierce paintball battle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
After hours spent in the thick pollution-choking parts of northern Thailand, Pon Doikam gets home and blows her burning nose to find blood clots spattered across the tissue.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
On one residential street, two machines about 20 yards apart are spattered with a bright white substance.
From BBC ● Mar. 1, 2026
Llera, who has covered crime for more than three decades, smoked a cigarette while he snapped photographs of a taxi spattered with blood.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2024
Something in the arrow’s tip broke and spattered, and the flames caught the liquid.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
You’ll also hear a larger, darker woofling from the tailpipes, and phlegmy, spattering cough as the rpm fall off.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
It’s a veritable Jackson Pollock spattering of woes.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
A spattering of anti-war protests was quickly stamped out.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025
And whether a ring, a miniature moon, or some other scenario, spattering our planet with space rocks may have created conditions that set up what we think of as “modern” oceans.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2024
Horrified, I watched the glass shatter on the ground, spattering tea across the hems of our skirts.
From "The Bridge Home" by Padma Venkatraman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
