totter

CEFRB2

/ˈtɒtə/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To walk or move unsteadily, almost falling.

  2. 02

    verb

    Extra detail

    To be on the brink of collapse.

Examples

  • The old building began to totter after the small earthquake.

  • To totter means to move in a very unsteady way as if about to fall.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
3
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To collect junk or scrap.

  2. To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. An unsteady movement or gait.

More examples

In context

  • Tom and Mary were playing on the teeter-totter.

  • The baby tottered from the table to the chair.

  • The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

After drinking too much, he began to blank and nearly fell over.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

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.