wamble
Americanverb (used without object)
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to move unsteadily.
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to feel nausea.
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(of the stomach) to rumble; growl.
noun
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an unsteady or rolling movement.
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a feeling of nausea.
verb
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to move unsteadily
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to twist the body
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to feel nausea
noun
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an unsteady movement
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a sensation of nausea
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of wamble
1300–50; Middle English wamle, obscurely akin to Norwegian vamla to stagger
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ay, ’a will sit studding and thinking as if ’a were going to turn chapel-member, and then do nothing but traypse and wamble about.
From Under the Greenwood Tree, or, the Mellstock quire; a rural painting of the Dutch school by Thomas Hardy
Well, Master William, wamble not off your mother's lap, neither rattle in your excruciating way in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon; no more crowing like a cock, or skirlin' like a kenna-what.
From Health Five Lay Sermons to Working-People by John Brown
Shall I speak, dear Warner? let me now; it does so wamble within me, just like a clyster, i'faith la, and I can keep it no longer, for my heart.
From Dryden's Works Vol. 3 (of 18) Sir Martin Mar-All; The Tempest; An Evening's Love; Tyrannic Love by John Dryden
It's a cheery sensation, you know, to find a man who has some imagination, but who has been unspoiled by Interesting People, and take him to hear them wamble.
From Our Mr. Wrenn, the Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man by Sinclair Lewis
Here's a fine blade, now, and a musket—give me a harquebus; I could shoot once, but my arm is all of a wamble now.
From With Drake on the Spanish Main by Herbert Strang
In the ninth Heeney was twice bumped to the floor, twice wambled up again.
From Time Magazine Archive
Huey's son whooped and wambled through the debate, arms waving and objections flying, as if bent on infuriating the rest of the Senate.
From Time Magazine Archive
We walked on like that all night; and in the blue o' the morning, when 'twas hardly day, I looked ahead o' me, and I zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along.
From The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
And here now his Stomach wambled more terribly than before; so that if his Friend were by, he must of necessity hold the Bason.
From Essays on the Stage Preface to the Campaigners (1689) and Preface to the Translation of Bossuet's Maxims and Reflections on Plays (1699) by Joseph Wood Krutch
When he came to us his limbs seemed almost to have lost their joints, they wambled so.
From Tatterdemalion by John Galsworthy
Marilyn Monroe’s eye-catching gait is more tortile and wambling than ever.
From Time ● Aug. 3, 2012
A long loop of metal emerges from one corner, traces a wambling arc in the air, flops on the floor and creeps back into the opposite corner.
From Time Magazine Archive
Titles, he said, made him "spew," created a "wambling" in his stomach.
From Time Magazine Archive
The drawing is submerged in weak, declamatory, wambling brushstrokes; the color -- mostly pink -- is bright and boring.
From Time Magazine Archive
But when poor Nat came wambling in again, she slid away.
From The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
