Sputter

They can't help but sputter excuses for their sorry behavior.

Sputter deposition is widely employed in the semiconductor industry.

The engine started to sputter.

The child [...] kicked, and crowed, and sputtered, when his mother took him, and put up his little fingers to clutch her hair, and was to her as a young god upon the earth. Nothing in the world had ever been created so beautiful, so joyous, so satisfactory, so divine!

They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples.

In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest and falsest accusations.

Like the green wood [...] sputtering in the flame.