Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Tottering |
TotteringAdjective1. Unsteady in gait as from infirmity or old age; "a tottering skeleton of a horse"; "a tottery old man". 2. (of structures or institutions) having lost stability; failing or on the point of collapse; "a tottering empire". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "tottering" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
Synonym: TotteringSynonym: tottery (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Danger | Tottering; unstable, unsteady; shaky, top-heavy, tumbledown, ramshackle, crumbling, waterlogged; helpless, guideless; in a bad way; reduced to the last extremity, at the last extremity; trembling in the balance; nodding to its fall; (destruction). threatening; ominous, illomened; alarming; (fear); explosive. |
Death | Dying. Verb: moribund, morient; hippocratic; in articulo, in extremis; in the jaws of death, in the agony of death; going off; aux abois; one one's last legs, on one's death bed; at the point of death, at death's door, at the last gasp; near one's end, given over, booked; with one foot in the grave, tottering on the brink of the grave. |
Destruction | Adjective: destroyed; Verb: perishing; Verb: trembling to its fall, nodding to its fall, tottering to its fall; in course of destruction; Noun: extinct. |
Deterioration | At a low ebb, in a bad way, on one's last legs; undermined, deciduous; nodding to its fall; (destruction); tottering;. (dangerous) : past cure; (hopeless); fatigued; retrograde; (retrogressive); deleterious. |
Weakness | Frail, fragile, shattery; flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy; drooping, tottering; Verb:. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Tottering |
| English words defined with "tottering": shaking palsy ♦ Totteringly, tottery, Tottlish. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "tottering": totter. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Schiller | Ever building to the clouds, and never reflecting that the poor narrow basis cannot sustain the giddy, tottering column. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Communist Manifesto | 1848 | The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | It adjusts to its divine work, without being disconcerted, the man who strode over the Alps, and the good old tottering invalid of the Pere Elysee. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Tottering" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 77.19% of the time. "Tottering" is used about 57 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 77.19% | 44 | 51,500 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 19.3% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.75% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.75% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 57 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "tottering": go tottering ♦ tottering on the brink of the grave ♦ tottering to its fall ♦ with a tottering step. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
along just now tottering | 4 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "tottering"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | i paqëndrueshëm (changeable, cranky, fickle, fluent, fluid, inconsequential, inconstant, infirm, labile, mutable, non-persistent, protean, rocky, soft, tipsy, unequable, unstable, unsteady, variable, volatile, waggly, wayward), i lëkundur (crazy, Dickey, dicky, Dotty, hesitant, hesitating, shilly shally, tottery, undecided, vacillating). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | متمايل (reeling, swinging, wavering), متقلقل (faltering, shaky, unsteady, upset), مترنح (drunken, faltering, groggy, reeling, rocky, shaky, staggering, tottery), متداع (rickety, unstable), مرتخي المفاصل, غير مستقر (inconstant, infirm, insecure, labile, migrant, skittish, uneasy, unsettled, unstable, unsteady). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | олюляващ се (staggering, wavy), залитащ (tottery). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | '跚 (Lurched, lurching, totter, Tottered), 臲 (unsteady). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | horjuva (failing, uncertain, undecided, unstable, unsteady, wavering). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | trébuchant, chancelant (tottery). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | taumelnd (dizzily, lurching, staggering), wankend (staggering, wavering), wacklig (ramshackle, ramshackly, shakily, shaky, tottery, uneasy, unsteady, wobbly), wackelig (loose, rickety, rocky, shakily, shaky, tipsily, unfirm, unsteadily, unsteady, waggly, wobbly), schwankend (dizzily, faltering, fickle, firmless, fluctuating, hesitant, oscillating, pitching, rocking, rolling, seesawing, shakily, shaking, staggering, swaying, toddling, uncertain, uneven, unstable, unsteady, vacillating, varying, wavering, wobbling), kränklich (abnormal, ailing, dicky, ill, peaky, sickish, sickly, unhealthy, valetudinarian, weakly), bröckelig (crumbling, crumbly, friable, papery). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | ασταθήσ (choppy, erratic, inconstant, infirm, top heavy, tottery, unstable, unsteady, wabbly), τρικλίζων (totterer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | פיק ברכים (knocking of the knees, titubation), "תמוטטות (breakdown, collapse, fall, overthrow, slump), "ת ו""ות (reeling, stagger, swag, swaying). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | támolygó (giddy-paced, groggy, tottery, wobbling), támolygás (reel, stagger, staggering, totter, wobble, wobbling). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | よそ行き (according to, appears like, bell sounding, bitter gourd, company manners, from, going out, of all things, one's best clothes, out of, seedy, shabby, since, than, to be, to come, to go, totteringly, unsteady on its feet, weak from old age, with tottering steps, worn-out, wrinkled-up). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | よろよろ (unsteady on its feet). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | tuittymagh (accident, caducous, crumbling, epileptic; disagreement, falling; accidental), corraghys, corraghid (fickleness, vicissitude). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | otteringtay titubeante (tottery, wavering), que ameaça ruína, pouco firme (incompact, infirm, insecure, niddle-noddle, rattletrap, shaky, shifting, tottery, uncertain, unsafe, unsound, unstable, unsteady, unsure, weak-kneed, wobbly, wonky), instável (ambulatory, astatic, baffling, bumpy, changeable, erratic, fickle, kid-glove, labile, lubricous, mobile, mutable, off-balance, slippery, slippy, temperamental, ticklish, tippy, unreliable, unsound, unstable, unsteady, variable, wayward, wonky), cambaleante (groggy, tottery, vacillating). (various references) cu un pas şovãitor (with a tottering step). (various references) шатающийся (staggerer, wobbly), нетвердый (unsteady). (various references) teturajući, klecajući. (various references) tambaleante (ramshackle, rickety, shaky, staggering, tottery, wobbly). (various references) vacklande (oscillation, rocky, shaky, shilly shally, stagger, tottery, unsettled, unstable, unsteady, wavering, wobble, wobbly), stapplande (faltering, tottery). (various references) sendeleyen (groggy, shaking, staggering, tottery, tripping, vacillating, wobbly), sendeleme (grogginess, lurch, stagger, staggering, stumble, titubation, vacillation, wobble), sarsak (a dithering idiot, clumsy, Dickey, dicky, doddering, doddery, jerky, palsied, rocky, shaky, tottery). (various references) нетвердий (unstable, unsteadfast). (various references) sắp đổ lảo đảo, lung lay (loose, niddle-noddle, oscillatory, tottery). (various references) simsan (rickety, shaky, unsteady). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "tottering": totteringly. (additional references) | |
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"Tottering" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: titterings, Totteridges, tott'ring, tuttering, twttering. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "tottering" (pronounced tÄ"tering) |
| 4 | -t er i ng | administering, altering, bantering, bartering, battering, bettering, blistering, blustering, bolstering, catering, centering, chartering, chattering, clustering, cluttering, countering, doctoring, encountering, entering, factoring, faltering, festering, filibustering, filtering, flattering, fluttering, fostering, frittering, glittering, guttering, hectoring, lettering, littering, loitering, mastering, mentoring, metering, mitering, monitoring, motoring, mustering, muttering, nattering, neutering, pestering, petering, plastering, puttering, reentering, registering, scattering, sculpturing, sequestering, shattering, sheltering, shuttering, slaughtering, smattering, spattering, splintering, sputtering, stuttering, sweltering, teetering, tutoring, unflattering, uttering, watering. |
| 3 | -er i ng | anchoring, angering, answering, auguring, backfiring, badgering, belaboring, beleaguering, bewildering, bickering, blundering, bordering, bothering, brokering, butchering, capturing, censoring, clamoring, clobbering, coloring, configuring, conjuring, conquering, considering, cornering, covering, cowering, culturing, deciphering, delivering, desiring, devouring, diapering, dickering, differing, discovering, disfavoring, disfiguring, dismembering, dithering, doddering, embroidering, empowering, endangering, endeavoring, fathering, favoring, feathering, featuring, figuring, fingering, flavoring, flickering, floundering, flowering, foundering, fracturing, furthering, garnering, gathering, gerrymandering, gesturing, glimmering, glowering, grandfathering, hammering, hampering, hankering, harboring, hindering, hollering, honoring, hovering, hungering, hunkering, injuring, inquiring, laboring, laundering, lawyering, layering, lecturing, levering, lingering, lowering, lumbering, majoring, maneuvering, manufacturing, massacring, maundering, meandering, measuring, minoring, mirroring, mongering, mothering, murdering, murmuring, neighboring, nonmanufacturing, numbering, nurturing, offering, ordering, outnumbering, pampering, pandering, papering, partnering, peppering, perjuring, philandering, picturing, pilfering, plundering, pondering, posturing, powdering, powering, pressuring, proffering, prospering, puncturing, quivering, recapturing, reconsidering, recovering, rediscovering, rejiggering, remembering, rendering, reoffering, reordering, requiring, restructuring, rewiring, rupturing, savoring, scampering, scouring, severing, shimmering, shivering, shouldering, showering, shuddering, simmering, slithering, slobbering, slumbering, smoldering, smothering, snickering, sobering, soldering, soldiering, souring, spiering, sponsoring, squandering, staggering, structuring, suffering, surrendering, swaggering, tailoring, tampering, tapering, tempering, tendering, thundering, tinkering, torturing, towering, transpiring, triggering, uncovering, unwavering, ushering, venturing, wagering, wallpapering, wandering, warmongering, wavering, weathering, whimpering, whispering, withering, wondering, Wuthering, zippering. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-g-i-n-o-r-t-t-t" | |
-1 letter: trotting. | |
-2 letters: genitor, gittern, retting, rotting, totting, tritone. | |
-3 letters: engirt, eringo, goiter, goitre, gotten, ignore, intort, norite, orient, region, retint, rotten, tinter, titter, toeing, tonger, tonier, torten, toting, totter, trigon, triton. | |
-4 letters: ergot, genro, giron, goner, griot, groin, inert, ingot, inter, intro, irone, niter, nitre, nitro, noter, otter, reign, renig, rotte, tenor, tiger, tigon. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-g-i-n-o-r-t-t-t" | |
+2 letters: totteringly. | |
+3 letters: ghostwritten, reoutfitting, retrofitting. | |
+4 letters: outglittering, outstretching, thermosetting, thermostating. | |
+5 letters: counterstating, integrationist, reconstituting, teratogenicity, thermostatting. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)54 6F 74 74 65 72 69 6E 67 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)- --- - - . .-. .. -. --. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010100 01101111 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)T o t t e r i n g |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0054 006F 0074 0074 0065 0072 0069 006E 0067 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)548186867184758073 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Familiar 6. Quotations: Historic 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Orthography 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
