Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use falter in a sentence

26 example sentences · noun, verb

Falter means an unsteadiness. Example: “One faltering step means certain death.”

Examples of falter by meaning

nounAn unsteadiness.

  • Tom, who isn't paying much attention, is suddenly caught by the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines—2009, Ruth Cigman, Andrew Davis, New Philosophies of Learning, page 200

verbTo lose faith or vigor; to doubt or abandon (a cause).

  • And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […]...
  • It was important that there be no hesitancy on my part — nothing to indicate that the U.S. government had faltered.1971, Lyndon Johnson, “"I feel like I have already been here a year"”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC...

More sentences with falter

  • One faltering step means certain death.From the entry mean
  • But languish not to alter, Where to fantasticise would be to falter, To falter weakly, unachieving change.2017, Mark Steven, Red Modernism: American Poetry and the Spirit of Communism. From the entry fantasticise
  • Training, dedication, religious zeal, planning, even where purity might falter, would correct all that.2003, Lenn E. Goodman, Islamic Humanism page 112. From the entry manhood
  • A mile outside in the heart of the storm Pearce faltered a second.1908 January 24, “Pearce Battles Blizzard and Makes Hamilton-Toronto Run […]”, in The Toronto Daily Star, 16th year, Toronto, Ont., →ISSN…. From the entry uncomprehendedly
  • The vote for a new prime minister will involve plenty of backroom bargaining, while Thailand struggles to revive its faltering economy.2024 August 14, “Thai court dismisses PM for violating constitution”, in bbc.com. From the entry backroom
  • At best failing to work and at worst making members of the audience feel ill, the experiment faltered and failed.2022, Susan Stewart, “The Twentieth Century: Cinema, Haute Couture and Celebrity Scents”, in Common and Uncommon Scents: A Social History…. From the entry smell-o-vision
  • May’s faltering performance will only boost their confidence.2019 March 6, Patrick Maguire, “The Conservatives are losing on knife crime, and three other lessons from this week’s PMQs”, in New…. From the entry Corbynomics
  • Still, she could not prevent Mrs Croxon’s flusteriness from spreading like a contagion, so that even Peg’s systems faltered.2015, Martine Bailey, “Delafosse Hall: October 1792”, in The Penny Heart, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 207. From the entry flusteriness
  • Levi fought the wereman, but he lost.” Her voice faltered.2013, Tara Fox Hall, Immortal Confessions, A Promise Me Origins Tale, →ISBN, page 156. From the entry wereman
  • "Weariness too faltered my conscience . . . besmalling me."1984, Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, Bikmaus. From the entry besmall
  • The race to the finish line has started already according to Jürgen Klopp and by those punishing standards Liverpool have faltered badly.2017 January 21, Andy Hunter, “Gylfi Sigurdsson and Swansea stun Liverpool in five-goal thriller”, in The Guardian. From the entry finish line
  • It begs the question: why did the Neanderthals “fail,” since the cave-dwelling hominin, like the cave bear, faltered during the last glaciation, not afterward?2012, Lydia Pyne, Stephen J. Pyne, chapter 7, in The Last Lost World, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry cave bear
  • Never stopping, never faltering, never fading.2008 July 5, Russell T Davies, “Journey's End”, in Graeme Harper, director, Doctor Who, season 4 [30], episode 13, spoken by Davros…. From the entry reality
  • There are repetitions and nonsequiturs, words missed or misinterpolated, place names misspelt, both grammar and typing falter, and there was a mastodon with multiple anuses.2006, Cambridge Anthropology - Volume 25, Issue 3, page 73. From the entry misinterpolate
  • One nudged the other’s arm, nodding towards our table while another stared directly on me with a blinkless gaze that did not falter.2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 16, in Small Island, London: Review, page 176. From the entry blinkless
  • The tap of the ball falling and the jacks swept in and out never faltered, but now Blanca began speaking to him from the floor.1991, Kay Boyle, Gentlemen, I Address You Privately, page 51. From the entry jackman
  • "Thing is," Anahita resumed, and then, faltering, "Mean to say, well, we just think it's great." — "You, she means," Mishal corrected.1988, Salman Rushdie, chapter V, in The Satanic Verses, page 268. From the entry brilliant
  • Monocultures are bad for the environment; as we forced golden, waving wheat to take over the planet, other species faltered and failed, rather than rising on their merits.2023 September 30, Martha Gill, “When Taylor Swift reaps country-sized riches, other artists are squeezed out”, in The Observer, →ISSN. From the entry monoculture
  • The friendship had faltered during their first year at Oxford, when Barnaby had turned jester-in-chief to a pride of strutting young peacocks with titles and country estates.2011, Mark Mills, chapter 9, in House of the Hanged, London: HarperCollins, →ISBN; House of the Hunted: A Novel, 1st U.S. edition, New…. From the entry kiss someone's ring
  • But there is a counterside to promotional hyperbole, for exaggerated promises that dovetail with people's hopes and expectations open the way to cynicism should promises falter or fail.1998, William D. Foulkes, Shirley V. Hodgson, Inherited Susceptibility to Cancer, page 51. From the entry counterside
  • Newcastle beat Bolton to increase the pressure on the Londoners, while Chelsea are also hot on the heels of faltering Tottenham, who have one win from their last eight games.2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport. From the entry hot on someone's heels
  • On Monday, CBS’s “CSI: Miami” seized the title as the night’s highest-rated show among adults 18 to 49, while NBC’s “Heroes” continued to falter with ratings below its prehiatus levels.2007 May 9, “Arts, Briefly”, in New York Times. From the entry prehiatus
  • The Spring Burials Violets growing through the asphalt mean the usual of spring's predicament: how, busy getting born, still wings and green will falter, twist, misgrow their management and die.1995, Erin Belieu, Infanta. From the entry misgrow

Meaning of falter

  1. noun An unsteadiness.
  2. verb To waver or be unsteady; to weaken or trail off.
  3. verb To stammer; to utter with hesitation, or in a weak and trembling manner.

Full definition of falter

Questions about falter in a sentence

How do you use falter in a sentence?
Falter is used as a noun and verb. For example: “One faltering step means certain death.”
What is a short sentence with falter?
“Never stopping, never faltering, never fading.”
What does falter mean?
Falter means an unsteadiness.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: falter (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use falter in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/falter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.