totter
Appearance
See also: Totter
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English totren, toteren, from earlier *tolteren (compare dialectal English tolter (“to struggle, flounder”); Scots tolter (“unstable, wonky”)), from Old English tealtrian (“to totter, vacillate”), from Proto-Germanic *taltrōną, a frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *taltōną (“to sway, dangle, hesitate”), from Proto-Indo-European *del-, *dul- (“to shake, hesitate”).
Cognate with Dutch touteren (“to tremble”), Norwegian dialectal totra (“to quiver, shake”), North Frisian talt, tolt (“unstable, shaky”). Related to tilt.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈtɒtə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈtɑtɚ/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɒtə(ɹ)
Verb
[edit]totter (third-person singular simple present totters, present participle tottering, simple past and past participle tottered) (intransitive)
- To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.
- The baby tottered from the table to the chair.
- The old man tottered out of the pub into the street.
- The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.
- 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
- Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
- (figurative) To be on the brink of collapse.
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 11:
- […] the folly of this Iland, they ſay there's but fiue vpon this Iſle ; we are three of them, if th' other two be brain'd like vs, the State totters.
- 1941 December, Kenneth Brown, “The Newmarket & Chesterford Railway—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 533:
- By the latter part of 1848, the throne of Hudson the Railway King who had been called in in 1845 as a superman to save the Eastern Counties Railway, was tottering to its fall, [...].
- (archaic) To collect junk or scrap.
Synonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]move or stand unsteadily
Noun
[edit]totter (plural totters)
- An unsteady movement or gait.
- (archaic) A rag and bone man.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]unsteady movement
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Middle High German
[edit]Noun
[edit]totter m
- Alternative form of toter
Declension
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɒtə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɒtə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with archaic senses
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- Middle High German lemmas
- Middle High German nouns
- Middle High German masculine nouns
- Middle High German masculine class 1 strong nouns