QUAVERING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does quavering mean? 

• QUAVERING (adjective)
  The adjective QUAVERING has 1 sense:

1. (of the voice) quivering as from weakness or fear

  Familiarity information: QUAVERING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• QUAVERING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of the voice) quivering as from weakness or fear

Synonyms:

quavering; tremulous

Context example:

spoke timidly in a tremulous voice

Similar:

unsteady (subject to change or variation)

 Context examples 

From Wiltshire, friend, said she, in a quavering voice; three days have I been on the road.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was voicing an utter woe, his cry bursting upward in great heart-breaking rushes, dying down into quavering misery, and bursting upward again with a rush upon rush of grief.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“Who are you, then? What do you want?” he asked in a quavering voice.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Through the silence of the great forest there came a swishing, whistling sound, mingled with the most dolorous groans, and the voice of a man raised in a high quavering kind of song.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Three, most holy father,” the brother answered in a low and quavering voice.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping broken sobs and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)