titubate
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- verb To stumble; trip; stagger; reel; rock or roll.
Examples
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It struck me, therefore, on reviewing this case, that the more the people drank, the more they would titubate, by which word it was that I expressed the reeling and stumbling of intoxication.
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Let two unequal hard balls, moving with equal momenta in opposite directions, be conceived to come in contact at the same time with the opposite parts of another hard ball at rest, then will the intermediate ball remain at rest, and not titubate the one way or the other, nor be any more affected than if it had not been struck at all.
Thomas Thomson, Richard Phillips, Edward William Brayley, Annals of Philosophy
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But his mare in his manage did a little so titubate, that much ado had his manhood to sit in his saddle, and to scape the foil of a fall.
Note
This word comes from the Latin ‘titubare,’ to stagger, totter. The name 'Tituba,' most famously associated with a 17th-century slave who was one of the first accused during the Salem witch trials, either comes from a Yoruba word meaning ‘endless,’ or the Spanish ‘titubear,’ to stammer.
