Other forms: uttered, uttering, utters
To utter is to make a sound or speak words aloud. Anything at all that leaves the mouth.
The word is formal and it appears most often in the negative, since not uttering a word is the standard way of saying somebody stayed silent. Law uses it precisely, and uttering a forged document means passing it off as genuine. There is a completely separate adjective spelled the same, meaning complete and total, so utter nonsense and utter darkness are common. That adjective is far more frequent than the verb.
1verbverbTo say something or make a sound aloud.
“He did not utter a single word all evening.”
2adjectivecompleteComplete and absolute.
“The whole thing was utter chaos.”
Also accepted in games: say
The utter that means complete is Old English ūtera, literally more out, the comparative of ūt. Utter nonsense is nonsense pushed all the way to the outside.
Proto-Indo-European
*úd
Old English
ūtera — exterior, outer
Middle English
outre
English, today
utter
Built from
The adjective is derived from Middle English outre, utter, uttre (“situated on the outside of, exterior”), from Old English ūtera (“exterior, outer”) literally “more out”, the comparative form of ūt (“out”). outer. The noun is derived from the adjective.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA