teeter
/ˈtiːtə//ˈtitəɹ/
teeter verb: to tilt back and forth on an edge.
Verb
teeter (third-person singular simple present teeters, present participle teetering, simple past and past participle teetered)
- To tilt back and forth on an edge.
- He teetered on the brink of the precipice.
- The concrete floors of B2B sheds were already being built to an exacting degree of flatness, calibrated using lasers, so that forklifts would not teeter while lifting pallets to the highest shelves.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 24 Jan 2025
- To totter (move unsteadily).
- How many other organizations have sprung up amidst apparently unlimited energy, been the focus of a great deal of activism and education, and then begun to diminish? Some teeter along for a long time even though their base of support seems to have eroded; some metamorphose into something else...1985 December 28, Nora Janeway, “Women's Pentagon Action Meets for the Last Time”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 24, page 12
- To be indecisive; to hesitate.
- We teetered on the fence about buying getaway tickets and missed the opportunity.
- To be close to becoming a typically negative situation.
- Despite appearances, the firm was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Noun
teeter (plural teeters)
- A teeter-totter or seesaw.
Proper noun capitalized: Teeter
Teeter (plural Teeters)
- A surname from German.
teeter meaning in Malayalam and Kannada
teeter in Malayalam
- wobble, totter, toddle
- ഇടറിനടക്കുക, പ്രാഞ്ചുക, പ്രാഞ്ചിനടക്കുക, പിച്ചനടക്കുക, പിച്ചവയ്ക്കുക, പിച്ചകളിക്കുക
- fluctuate, see-saw, veer
- ചാഞ്ചാടുക, ചാഞ്ചാട്ടമുണ്ടാകുക, മേലോട്ടും താഴോട്ടും ചലിക്കുക, പൊന്തുകയുംതാഴുകയും ചെയ്യുക, അങ്ങോട്ടുമിങ്ങോട്ടും ആടുക, ആന്ദോളനം ചെയ്യുക
teeter in Kannada
- ವಾಲಾಡು, ಅಲುಗಾಡು, ಅಸ್ಥಿರವಾಗಿ ಓಡಾಡು
Examples of teeter in a sentence
- On to that financial setup, forever teetering on a cliff edge, drop two parking tickets.
- High-heeled shoes were at the point of flatlining, industry pundits fretted, teetering on the edge of extinction.
- When she looked at photographs of raging urticaria or furfuraceous rashes, she teetered between repulsion and captivation.
Forms of teeter
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | teeters |
| present participle | teetering |
| past participle | teetered |
| past | teetered |
| Noun | |
| plural | teeters |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Teeters |
| alternative form | Teeters |
Origin of teeter
Alteration of titter.
Americanized spelling of German Dieter.
Words formed from teeter
Questions about teeter
- What does teeter mean?
- Teeter means to tilt back and forth on an edge.
- What is teeter in Malayalam?
- Teeter in Malayalam is ഇടറിനടക്കുക, പ്രാഞ്ചുക, പ്രാഞ്ചിനടക്കുക. See Teeter meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is teeter?
- Teeter can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce teeter?
- Teeter is pronounced /ˈtiːtə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of teeter?
- The past tense of teeter is teetered.
Words near teeter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: teeter (page history and authors); Teeter (page history and authors); teeter (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); teeter (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-teeter.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-teeter.wav.
Cite this entry: “teeter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/teeter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.