Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To sway as if about to fall.
- intransitive verb To appear about to collapse.
- intransitive verb To walk unsteadily or feebly; stagger. synonym: blunder.
- noun The act or condition of tottering.
from The Century Dictionary.
- An obsolete or dialectal form of
tatter . - To stand or walk unsteadily; walk with short vacillating or unsteady steps; be unsteady; stagger.
- To shake, and threaten collapse; become disorganized or structurally weak and seem ready to fall; become unstable and ready to overbalance or give way.
- To dangle at the end of a rope; swing on the gallows.
- Synonyms and
- Stagger, etc. See
reel . - To tremble, rock.
- To shake; impair the stability of; render shaky or unstable.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To shake so as to threaten a fall; to vacillate; to be unsteady; to stagger.
- intransitive verb To shake; to reel; to lean; to waver.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun an
unsteady movement orgait - noun archaic A rag and bone man.
- verb To
walk ,move orstand unsteadily orfalteringly ; threatening to fall. - verb archaic, intransitive To
collect junk orscrap .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb walk unsteadily
- verb move without being stable, as if threatening to fall
- verb move unsteadily, with a rocking motion
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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But the fact of the matter is, that the Democrats on this sort of teeter totter, that is politics, when the Democrats go up, Republicans go down and vice versa.
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Sancie! he can just walk -- a kind of totter from my knees to Cuthbert's -- and then so proud of himself!
Rest Harrow A Comedy of Resolution Maurice Hewlett 1892
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The moment the sick man could "totter" out of his room, he found his way to her whom he had abjured, and who was in Paris calmly awaiting his return to her.
A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) Sutherland Orr 1865
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I can barely lift the bulging knapsack, and when I try to stand, I totter dangerously.
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Over the course of a dusty week I discovered an appreciation for beers with my name on them, learned that Baja Bill the owner of the camp makes a mean margarita and even managed to totter over the top of a few waves.
Victoria Haschka: Why You Should Eat A Fish Taco Tonight Victoria Haschka 2011
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I wanted to de-glamorize the classic fashion industry photos, where women totter in high heels wearing bright red lipstick... and everything is revealed apart from the genital triangle, the real heart of seduction.
Shocking Nude Calendar Causes Controversy In Italy Curtis M. Wong 2011
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We have been on this teeter-totter of hope and despair for both sides, but since there is not actually a single piece of legislation on the table -- my latest count was four different versions -- what we're seeing is that both sides are taking their positions and digging in.
Digging In 2009
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The water heats her from the inside; she is a bag of water on legs that totter tremble.
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"Tall as a pine tree," as the text insists, he has humour as well as pathos: his naked entry into the world is marked by a totter on splayed feet and, when he moves, it is with a forward-thrusting, angular, almost Hulotesque curiosity.
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We have seen the proud and swaggering German, since our first being taken prisoner, gradually sway on his pinnacle, totter, and now fall to become the rabble of disillusioned soldiers that now present in the orbit of our vision.
Work Camp 10196 L 2010
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