Totter
['tɒtə] or ['tɑtɚ]
Definition
(verb.) move without being stable, as if threatening to fall; 'The drunk man tottered over to our table'.
Checked by Giselle--From WordNet
Definition
(v. i.) To shake so as to threaten a fall; to vacillate; to be unsteady; to stagger; as,an old man totters with age.
(v. i.) To shake; to reel; to lean; to waver.
Typist: Silvia
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. n. [1]. Stagger, reel, vacillate, falter.[2]. Shake, tremble, oscillate, rock, threaten to fall.
Checked by Barry
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Stagger, reel, shake, tremble, rock, falter,[See WHOLE]
Checker: Quincy
Definition
v.i. to shake as if about to fall: to be unsteady: to stagger: to shake.—n. Tott′erer.—adv. Tott′eringly in a tottering manner.—adjs. Tott′ery shaky; Tott′y (Spens.) tottering unsteady.
Inputed by Delia
Examples
- From that day the empire began to totter. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- They did not now guess at, and totter on the pathway, divining the mode to please, hoping, yet fearing the continuance of bliss. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- For the first time in her life, the strong woman tottered. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Five Popes tottered to the Lateran to die within the space of ten years. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- He shuddered and tottered to his feet. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- Her eyes glazed--she tottered--I thought that she would faint. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- An old gray-headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- The house had stood on a tottering base for a dozen years; and at last, in the shock of the French Revolution, it had rushed down a total ruin. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her this permission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- In that case her tottering faith would have become firm again. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- Tottering with weakness, she came forward, and delivered her basket. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- Two days later, D'Arnot was tottering about the amphitheater, Tarzan's strong arm about him to keep him from falling. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
- Thus tottering on the dizzy brink, we were happy. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- There was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled Law Books, all at 9d. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
Inputed by Heinrich