English edit

Etymology edit

spatter +‎ -y

Adjective edit

spattery (comparative more spattery, superlative most spattery)

  1. Accompanied or caused by spattering.
    • 1837, Mary Boddington, chapter 2, in Sketches in the Pyrenees[1], volume 1, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, page 27:
      On a raw wintry morning, a watermill may talk of damp and rats, and other comfortless things; but on such a day as this is, its cool gushing sound and spattery playfulness are delicious both to ear and eye.
    • 1920, Edith Ballinger Price, chapter 9, in Us and the Bottle Man[2], New York: Century, page 107:
      The rain went plop into the pools, and made a flattish, spattery sound on the rock.
    • 2006, David Foster Wallace, “Federer Both Flesh and Not”, in Both Flesh and Not, Boston: Little, Brown, published 2012:
      And the spattery gale that has knocked over parking signs and everted umbrellas all morning suddenly quits an hour before match time []
  2. Covered with or in the form of spatters.
    • 1874, Frederic B. Perkins, Scrope; or, The Lost Library[3], Boston: Roberts Brothers, Chapter , p. 256:
      [] he traced upon the paper, slowly, awkwardly, but without stopping once, a tangle of heavy, shaken, spattery lines, in which could nevertheless be recognized the signature of “Tarbox Button.”
    • 1981, Manly Wade Wellman, “Nobody Ever Goes There”, in John the Balladeer[4], New York: Baen Books, page 222:
      From where they sat they could see a spattery shimmer of moonlight on the water []

Anagrams edit