totter
Plural: totters
Verb
Verb Forms: tottered, tottering, totters
- To walk with unsteady, faltering steps; to sway precariously.
- move without being stable, as if threatening to fall
- "The drunk man tottered over to our table"
- walk unsteadily
- move unsteadily, with a rocking motion
- To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.
- To be on the brink of collapse.
- To collect junk or scrap.
Noun
- An unsteady movement or gait.
- A rag and bone man.
Examples
- His strategy began to TOTTER after his best word was challenged and ruled invalid.
- The baby tottered from the table to the chair.
- The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.
- The old man tottered out of the pub into the street.
Origin / Etymology
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.
Scrabble Score: 6
totter: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordtotter: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
totter: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary