Spatter or splatter?
spatter is a verb meaning “To splash (someone or something) with small droplets”; splatter is a noun meaning “An uneven shape or mess created by something dispersing on impact”. Use spatter as a verb and splatter as a noun (splatter is also a verb: “To splash; to scatter; to land or strike in an uneven…”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) splatter is about 2.3 times as common as spatter.
What is the difference between spatter and splatter?
| spatter | splatter | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To splash (someone or something) with small droplets To cover, or lie upon (something) by having been scattered, as if by splashing A spray or shower of droplets hitting a surface | An uneven shape or mess created by something dispersing on impact A genre of gory horror To splash; to scatter; to land or strike in an uneven, distributed mess |
| Example | When my wet chihuahua shook himself, I was spattered with smelly water | He had a hard time cleaning up the paint splatters on the carpet |
| Forms | spatters, spattering, spattered | splatters |
| Pronunciation | /ˈspætɚ/ | /ˈsplætɚ/ |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: spatter and splatter in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of spatter and splatter
spatter
- 1
To splash (someone or something) with small droplets
When my wet chihuahua shook himself, I was spattered with smelly water
- 2
A spray or shower of droplets hitting a surface
- 3
To cover, or lie upon (something) by having been scattered, as if by splashing
- 4
A spot or spots of a substance spattered on a surface
There was what looked like a spatter of blood on one wall
- 5
To distribute (a liquid) by sprinkling; to sprinkle around
to spatter blood
- 6
The sound of droplets hitting a surface
- 7
To send out or disperse (something) as if in droplets
- 8
A burst or series of sounds resembling the sound of droplets hitting a surface
splatter
- 1
An uneven shape or mess created by something dispersing on impact
He had a hard time cleaning up the paint splatters on the carpet
- 2
To splash; to scatter; to land or strike in an uneven, distributed mess
The drink splattered all over me, the table, and the floor when I knocked it over
- 3
A genre of gory horror
splatter film; splatter movie
- 4
To cause (something) to splatter
He splattered paint onto the wall
- 5
Spurious emissions resulting from an abrupt change in a transmitted radio signal
- 6
To spatter (something or somebody)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, spatter or splatter?
spatter appears about once in every 4 million words; splatter about once in every 2 million words.
spatter about once in every 4 million wordssplatter about once in every 2 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search spatter vs splatter?
“spatter vs splatter” is searched about 1,900 times a month on Google and 80 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“splatter vs spatter”, “spatter or splatter”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.