stammer
Definitions
General English
- noun a speech problem that involves hesitating and repeating sounds when speaking
- verb to repeat sounds when speaking, e.g. because of feeling nervous
Medical
- noun a speech difficulty in which someone repeats parts of a word or the whole word several times or stops to try to pronounce a word
- verb to speak with a stammer
Origin & History of “stammer”
To
stammer is etymologically to be ‘impeded’ in speech. The
word comes (
along with Dutch
stameren)
from a prehistoric
west Germanic *
stamrōjan,
which was derived from the
base *
stam-, *
stum- ‘check, impede’ (
source also of
English stem ‘halt, check’ and
stumble).
