Word.ws English Dictionary

totter

/ˈtɒtə/US/ˈtɑtɚ/

totter verb: to walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.

Verb

totter (third-person singular simple present totters, present participle tottering, simple past and past participle tottered)

  1. (intransitive) To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.
    • The baby tottered from the table to the chair.
    • The old man tottered out of the pub into the street.
    Synonyms:
    reel, teeter, toddle, stagger, sway
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To be on the brink of collapse.
    • […]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.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
    • By the latter part of 1848, the throne of Hudson the Railway King who had been called in in 1845 as a superman to save the Eastern Counties Railway, was tottering to its fall, [...].1941 December, Kenneth Brown, “The Newmarket & Chesterford Railway—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 533
    Synonyms:
    topple
  3. (archaic, intransitive) To collect junk or scrap.

Noun

totter (plural totters)

  1. (intransitive) An unsteady movement or gait.
  2. (archaic, intransitive) A rag and bone man.

Proper noun capitalized: Totter

Totter (plural Totters)

  1. A surname from German.

totter meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

totter in Hindi

move or stand unsteadily
लड़खड़ाना laṛakhṛānā, लंगड़ाना laṅgṛānā, डगमगाना ḍagamgānā, ढलमलाना ḍhalamlānā, डोलना ḍolnā, टलमलाना ṭalamlānā

totter in Tamil

தளர் நடையிடு, நிலை தடுமாறு, தள்ளாடு

totter in Urdu

ڈگمگانا, لرزنا

totter in Telugu

to totter or shake
కదలు kadalu
More languagesFewer languages
totter in Malayalam
വേച്ചുനടക്കുക, ഉലയുക, ചഞ്ചലപ്പെടുക
totter in Kannada
ತೂರಾಡು, ತತ್ತರಿಸು, ಬೀಳುವಂತಿರು, ತತ್ತರಿಸುತ್ತಾ ನಡೆ
totter in Sanskrit
हूर्छति hūrchati
totter in Persian
تلو telow

Examples of totter in a sentence

  • The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.
  • Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:

Synonyms of totter

All synonyms of totter

Forms of totter

Verb
third-person singular presenttotters
present participletottering
past participletottered
pasttottered
Noun
pluraltotters
Proper noun
pluralTotters

Past tense of totter: tottered

Origin of totter

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.

Words formed from totter

Words that rhyme with totter

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about totter

What does totter mean?
Totter means to walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.
What is totter in Hindi?
Totter in Hindi is लड़खड़ाना (laṛakhṛānā), लंगड़ाना (laṅgṛānā), डगमगाना (ḍagamgānā). See Totter meaning in Hindi.
How do you use totter in a sentence?
The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.
What part of speech is totter?
Totter can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce totter?
Totter is pronounced /ˈtɒtə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of totter?
The past tense of totter is tottered.

Words near totter in the dictionary

  1. Tottenham pudding
  2. Tottenham puddings
  3. Tottenhamite
  4. Tottenhoff
  5. Tottens
  6. totter
  7. Totterdown
  8. tottered
  9. totterer
  10. totterers
  11. tottergrass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: totter (page history and authors); Totter (page history and authors); totter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); totter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); కదలు (Telugu) (page history and authors); totter (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); totter (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-totter.wav.

Cite this entry: “totter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/totter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.