Spattle

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To scatter or splash liquid or semi-liquid matter in various directions
2. To fling or sprinkle something wet or messy around carelessly
3. To spread or distribute a substance in an irregular, splashy manner

Etymology: The word "spattle" names the moist, frothy spittle at the corner of the mouth, and its ancestry runs back to a Latin word for a flat blade. Middle English borrowed it as "spatyll" and "spatule" from Old French "spatule" or "espatule", which came from Late Latin "spatula". That Latin term meant a broad, flat implement, the same root that gave English "spatula", the kitchen tool for spreading and mixing. The link between a spreading tool and saliva is a shift from shape to substance. A spatula is flat and wide, and the image of something spread thinly across a surface seems to have been carried over to the wet, spreading matter around a speaker's lips. The two words share a source but moved in very different directions, one toward the kitchen and the other toward the mouth.