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Totter
Definitions
- 1 A surname from German.
- 1 An unsteady movement or gait. intransitive
- 2 A rag and bone man. archaic, intransitive
- 1 To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall. intransitive
"The baby tottered from the table to the chair."
- 2 move unsteadily, with a rocking motion wordnet
- 3 To be on the brink of collapse. figuratively, intransitive
"[…]the folly of this Iland, they ſay there's but fiue vpon this Iſle ; we are three of them, if th' other two be brain'd like vs, the State totters."
- 4 walk unsteadily, with short steps wordnet
- 5 To collect junk or scrap. archaic, intransitive
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- 6 move without being stable, as if threatening to fall wordnet
Etymology
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.
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.
Borrowed from Austrian German Totter.
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