TOTTERING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tottering mean? 

• TOTTERING (adjective)
  The adjective TOTTERING has 2 senses:

1. unsteady in gait as from infirmity or old age

2. (of structures or institutions) having lost stability; failing or on the point of collapse

  Familiarity information: TOTTERING used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TOTTERING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unsteady in gait as from infirmity or old age

Synonyms:

tottering; tottery

Context example:

a tottery old man

Similar:

unsteady (subject to change or variation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(of structures or institutions) having lost stability; failing or on the point of collapse

Context example:

a tottering empire

Similar:

unstable (lacking stability or fixity or firmness)

 Context examples 

I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Because of this he made heroic efforts to arise and at last he stood on his four legs, tottering and swaying back and forth.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The protector had become the protected, and the whole fabric of the feudal system was tottering to a fall.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Tottering and shaking in all his giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room.

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

Martin guided her tottering footsteps to a chair, from where she watched him with bulging eyes.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over, said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

We were just at the little bridge, by good fortune; and I helped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh and fell on my shoulder.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood—the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow's door.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards, in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)