wobbly
adjective
shaky; unsteady.
wobbly
1 American
[wob-lee]
/ ˈwɒb li /
Or
wabbly
adjective
wobblier,
wobbliest
Wobbly
2
American
[wob-lee]
/ ˈwɒb li /
noun
-
Wobblies
plural
wobbly
1
British
/ ˈwɒblɪ /
adjective
-
unsteady
-
trembling, shaking
noun
Wobbly
2
British
/ ˈwɒblɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of wobbly1
First recorded in 1850–55; wobble + -y 1
Origin of Wobbly2
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15; of uncertain origin
Explanation
If something's wobbly, it has a tendency to sway or lurch from side to side, like the wobbly wheel on a broken tricycle or the wobbly legs of a cruise ship passenger who has just set foot on solid ground after a week at sea. If your chair is wobbly, you may need to tighten the legs with a screwdriver. And if you're feeling wobbly during gym class, you probably need to sit down and drink some water. Anything or anyone that wobbles can be described as wobbly, and both words come from a root meaning "to weave back and forth." When the word is capitalized, it's a nickname for a member of the labor union called International Workers of the World.
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:
The Fed, for instance, cut interest rates three times in 2025 when the U.S. job market turned wobbly.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
Is historic male dominance in sports teetering like a marble Adonis on a wobbly pedestal?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
But I did, letting the edge of the bow sit loosely, even wobbly, between my fingers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
The labor market is on solid footing after looking wobbly last year.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
Instead he retreated to the farthest corner of the nursery, where he began building tall, wobbly towers out of square wooden blocks that he then proceeded to tip over with barely a hint of satisfaction.
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
Wobbly economic conditions could prompt Fed officials to lower rates more than the single cut they penciled in for 2026 back in December.
From Barron's ● Mar. 17, 2026
Its best friend was a penguin named Wobbly Willy.
From BBC ● Dec. 31, 2023
Wobbly China recovery after the country put an end to its “zero-COVID” policy has also prevented demand from rebounding quickly.
From Reuters ● Jul. 25, 2023
Based on her firsthand experience, she says that vendors you’ll definitely want to visit include Flat Tack Farm, Red Truck Farm, Wobbly Cart Farm and Reister Ranch.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 15, 2022
He ran a long feature on George Vandeveer, charlatan attorney for the Wobbly defense in the Everett Massacre deliberations.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
Neighborhood groups, many of them members of the Wobblies or the Communist Party, in the 1930s physically prevented sheriff's departments from evicting families.
From Salon ● May 4, 2021
The Wobblies, as Rye notes, are “the one big union that took anyone as a member: Finnish logger, Negro seamstress, Indian ranch hand, even floater like them.”
From Slate ● Oct. 30, 2020
“The Cold Millions” doesn’t romanticize what successes the Wobblies might have achieved in the face of lawyers, wealthy businessmen and assorted skullduggery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2020
Flappers, sailors, actors, Wobblies, writers heading for fame and bohemians heading for nowhere ate and drank in its windowless rooms.
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2017
We boiled up everything in the jail and it is safe to say that it is now cleaner than it had ever been before, or ever will be after the Wobblies are gone.
From The Everett massacre A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry by Walker C. Smith
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies ostensibly pegged to the value of a stable asset like the dollar that have sometimes proven wobblier than promised.
From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
The higher and lower the reflected illusion goes, the wobblier and more distorted the mental landscape becomes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2022
That could slow the winds and make the Arctic vortex weaker and wobblier.
From The Verge ● Feb. 1, 2019
My feet got wobblier, my efforts to loop back to the starting point slower and my water breaks more frequent.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2018
His stance grew wobblier with each passing second, but somehow he managed to make eye contact with me.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
Since that time, scientists have used what they have learned about gravitational waves to observe a black hole devour a neutron star, glimpse inside neutron stars and even discover the wobbliest black hole ever seen.
From Salon ● Nov. 28, 2023
Since then, the discovery of gravitational waves have allowed scientists to peer inside neutron stars and discover the wobbliest black hole ever detected.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2023
Science news headlines regularly tout how gravitational waves are allowing scientists to do new things like peer inside neutron stars and discover the wobbliest black hole ever detected.
From Salon ● Nov. 18, 2022
Open to become the first woman in 27 years to hold all four majors in a calendar year, it would cap another milestone for the record-breaking American: the wobbliest dominant season in tennis history.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 29, 2015
And their boxes and steamships are the wobbliest things.”
From Maida's Little Shop by Inez Haynes Gillmore
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.
