tottering

American  

[tot-er-ing] / ˈtɒt ər ɪŋ /

adjective

1. walking unsteadily or shakily.

2. lacking security or stability; threatening to collapse; precarious.

   a tottering empire.

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Other Word Forms

• totteringly
  adverb
• untottering
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of tottering

totter + -ing ²

Example Sentences

Tottering unsteadily between mining Wain’s vast repertoire of eccentricities for comedy and slathering them in pathos, the movie winds up so busily whimsical it forgets to actually be about anything.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 21, 2021

Tottering across the stage in a baby-pink, acid-blue and neon-yellow dress, she sang Love Is a Losing Game like none of us imagined she’d be able to sing it.

From The Guardian • Jun. 14, 2015

Tottering up a gold-tipped staircase, I found yet more gingham, printed on cigarette pants and darling little cardis.

From New York Times • May 29, 2013

Tottering icebergs, crumbling Carrara marble quarries, the sprawl of a Bernini fountain: these were some of the associations provoked by her thousands of white boxes, arranged to tower over visitors.

From The Guardian • May 4, 2010

Tottering high over the jungle floor, I braced against the trunk and got one branch into my hand.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer