unsteady

[ uhn-sted-ee ]

adjective

1. not steady or firm; unstable; shaky:

   an unsteady hand.

2. fluctuating or wavering:

   an unsteady flame; unsteady prices.

   Synonyms: vacillating

3. irregular or uneven:

   an unsteady development.

verb (used with object)

, un·stead·ied, un·stead·y·ing.

1. to make unsteady.

unsteady

/ ʌnˈstɛdɪ /

adjective

1. not securely fixed

   an unsteady foothold

2. (of behaviour, etc) lacking constancy; erratic
3. without regularity

   an unsteady rhythm

4. (of a manner of walking, etc) precarious, staggering, as from intoxication

verb

1. tr to make unsteady

Derived Forms

• unˈsteadiness, noun
• unˈsteadily, adverb

Other Words From

• un·steadi·ly adverb
• un·steadi·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of unsteady¹

First recorded in 1525–35; un- ¹ + steady

Synonym Study

See unsettled.

Example Sentences

Some months later they saw a hotel manager openly complain to a vendor about the unsteady supply of produce the hotel was getting.

From TechCrunch

Each chair is made with a sturdy steel frame that doesn’t wobble or feel unsteady, and the canvas seat offers plenty of wiggle room.

From Popular-Science

Enter Adam Young, a geomorphologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who has just compiled perhaps the most detailed dataset on an unsteady cliff faces to date, as our MacKenzie Elmer covers in a new story.

From Voice of San Diego

At the extremes, that ability can push people toward crafting more and more elaborate alternate realities, rickety structures that expand into elegant patterns but that stand on unsteady bases of support.

From Washington Post

Many of their students are disproportionately burdened by loan debt, and come from families with unsteady financial fortunes.

From TruthBeTold.news

He discovered his friend—the worse for wear and unsteady on her feet—in the second-floor living room.

From The Daily Beast

You stand on an unsteady pontoon bridge spanning the Tigris River in a township called Adh Dhouloueya.

From The Daily Beast

I was a newspaperman, just returned from the Middle East—a bit unsteady, still, in America.

From The Daily Beast

Besides worrying about how the models would walk on the unsteady ground, audience members knew something magical would happen.

From The Daily Beast

Filigrees of rhetorical precision atop unsteady pillars of conceptual bluff.

From The Daily Beast

The Princess still kept her eyes fixed on Louis, while, in a suppressed and unsteady voice, she answered her governess.

From Project Gutenberg

He obeyed without remark, though with an unsteady voice, as he uttered communications he knew were so hostile to her expectation.

From Project Gutenberg

Could he be conscious of all this, and not excuse the unsteady youth—accuse himself?

From Project Gutenberg

Have you noticed that to write with a steel pen is like walking on unsteady stones with sabots?

From Project Gutenberg

With weak unsteady steps he paced his room, and looked at the old Swiss chamois-gun above the door.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• erratic
• groggy
• precarious
• rickety
• rocky
• unstable
• wobbly