'Tottering' definitions:
Definition of 'tottering'
(from WordNet)
adjective
Unsteady in gait as from infirmity or old age; "a tottering skeleton of a horse"; "a tottery old man" [syn: tottering, tottery]
adjective
(of structures or institutions) having lost stability; failing or on the point of collapse; "a tottering empire"
Definition of 'Tottering'
From: GCIDE
- Totter \Tot"ter\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Tottered; p. pr. & vb. n. Tottering.] [Probably for older tolter; cf. AS. tealtrian to totter, vacillate. Cf.Tilt to incline, Toddle, Tottle, Totty.]
- 1. To shake so as to threaten a fall; to vacillate; to be unsteady; to stagger; as, an old man totters with age. "As a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence." --Ps. lxii. 3. [1913 Webster]
- 2. To shake; to reel; to lean; to waver. [1913 Webster]
- Troy nods from high, and totters to her fall. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'tottering'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- alternation,
- ambling,
- ambulation,
- anile,
- back-and-forth,
- backpacking,
- cautious,
- circumspect,
- claudicant,
- collapsing,
- coming and going,
- crabbed,
- crawling,
- creeping,
- creeping like snail,
- debilitated,
- deciduous,
- declining,
- declivitous,
- decrepit,
- decurrent,
- deliberate,
- descendant,
- descending,
- dilapidated,
- doddered,
- doddering,
- doddery,
- down,
- down-reaching,
- downcoming,
- downfalling,
- downgoing,
- downhill,
- downsinking,
- downward,
- drooping,
- dropping,
- easy,
- ebb and flow,
- falling,
- faltering,
- feeble,
- flagging,
- fluctuation,
- flux and reflux,
- foot-dragging,
- footing,
- footing it,
- footwork,
- fossilized,
- gentle,
- gerontal,
- gerontic,
- going on foot,
- gradual,
- groggy,
- halting,
- hiking,
- hitchhiking,
- hitching,
- hobbled,
- hobbling,
- hoofing,
- idle,
- indolent,
- infirm,
- languid,
- languorous,
- lazy,
- legwork,
- leisurely,
- limping,
- Lissajous figure,
- lumbering,
- marching,
- moderate,
- mossbacked,
- moth-eaten,
- mummylike,
- on the decline,
- on the descendant,
- on the downgrade,
- on the skids,
- on the wane,
- oscillation,
- palsied,
- papery-skinned,
- pedestrianism,
- pendulation,
- perambulation,
- plummeting,
- plunging,
- poking,
- poky,
- ramshackle,
- ravaged with age,
- reciprocation,
- relaxed,
- reluctant,
- rhythmic play,
- ricketish,
- rickety,
- rocky,
- run to seed,
- rusty,
- sagging,
- sauntering,
- seesaw,
- seesawing,
- senile,
- setting,
- shaky,
- shifting,
- shriveled,
- shuffling,
- sine wave,
- sinking,
- slack,
- slothful,
- slow,
- slow as death,
- slow as molasses,
- slow as slow,
- slow-crawling,
- slow-foot,
- slow-going,
- slow-legged,
- slow-moving,
- slow-paced,
- slow-poky,
- slow-running,
- slow-sailing,
- slow-stepped,
- sluggish,
- snail-paced,
- snaillike,
- spidery,
- spindly,
- staggering,
- stricken in years,
- strolling,
- submerging,
- subsiding,
- teeter,
- teeter-totter,
- teeter-tottering,
- teetering,
- teetery,
- tentative,
- thumbing,
- thumbing a ride,
- timeworn,
- to-and-fro,
- toddling,
- tortoiselike,
- tottery,
- tramping,
- treading,
- trudging,
- tumbledown,
- turtlelike,
- unhurried,
- unsteady,
- ups and downs,
- vacillation,
- variation,
- vicissitude,
- waddling,
- walking,
- wavering,
- weak,
- wigwag,
- withered,
- wizened,
- wobbly