zigzagger

English

Etymology

From zigzag +‎ -er.

Noun

zigzagger (plural zigzaggers)

1. An attachment for a sewing machine allowing for zigzag stitches.
   • 1942, The Chemistry leaflet:

     Join the pieces with overlapping seams and finish off by stitching with the zigzagger attachment.

   • 1954, Kiplinger's Personal Finance:

     If a woman had the finest conventional sewing machine with all the attachments ever made, she could not do one tenth of the work that can be done on a modern zigzagger.

2. Someone who zigzags; a person who makes rapid changes of direction, especially (figuratively) in opinion, policy etc.
   • 2005, Before the fall: an inside view of the pre-Watergate White House:

     That is what has long worried many people about Nixon: they saw him as the political man, the born trimmer, the zigzagger and flipflopper, the constantly moving target

   • 2006, John A. Hall, Ralph Schroeder, An anatomy of power: the social theory of Michael Mann:

     As a self-avowed 'zigzagger' who works back and forth between historical particularities and sociological categories,

   • 2017, David Friend, The Naughty Nineties, Twelve Books:

     In the view of Greenberg and his colleagues, Clinton […] was a zigzagger who tailored his views to suit voters.