unsteady
Syllables: un·steady/ʌnˈstɛdi/
unsteady adjective: not held firmly in position; physically unstable.
Adjective
unsteady (comparative unsteadier, superlative unsteadiest)
- Not held firmly in position; physically unstable.
- A slightly unsteady item of furniture.
- "Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned...1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- precarious
- Lacking regularity or uniformity.
- Synonyms:
- chaotic
- Inconstant in purpose, or volatile in behavior.
Verb
unsteady (third-person singular simple present unsteadies, present participle unsteadying, simple past and past participle unsteadied)
- To render unsteady, removing balance.
unsteady meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
unsteady in Hindi
- not held in position
- अस्थिर asthir, ढीला ḍhīlā
- lacking regularity
- अनियमित aniymit
- inconstant in purpose or volatile in behavior
- अनियमित aniymit, अस्थिर asthir
unsteady in Marathi
- unsteady, unstable, inconstant
- अधीर adhīr
unsteady in Urdu
- unsteady, wanton
- خیلا xelā
unsteady in Bengali
- unsteady, changeable
- অস্থির osthir
More languagesFewer languages
- unsteady in Telugu
- చపలము capalamu
- unsteady in Malayalam
- ഉറപ്പില്ലാത്ത, ഉറച്ചുനിൽക്കാത്ത, കാലുറയ്ക്കാത്ത, ഇടറുന്ന
- unsteady in Kannada
- ಉಳಲು, ನಿಲ್ಲದ
- unsteady in Sanskrit
- चञ्चल cañcala, चल cala, चलाचल calācalá, अनित्य anitya
- unsteady in Persian
- شل, لق
Examples of unsteady in a sentence
- Is my bike wheel true? It feels unsteady.
- He was growing unsteady as the blows landed, and that final right hook finished him — he was out cold.
- It’s not uncommon for Singapore’s F&B landscape to shift in an almost rapid and unsteady fashion.
Synonyms of unsteady
Antonyms
Forms of unsteady
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | unsteadier |
| superlative | unsteadiest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | unsteadies |
| present participle | unsteadying |
| past participle | unsteadied |
| past | unsteadied |
Origin of unsteady
From un- + steady. Like steady, the word first appeared in English around 1530. The word is comparable to Old Frisian onstedich, Low German unstadig, etc.
Words formed from unsteady
Words that rhyme with unsteady
Questions about unsteady
- What does unsteady mean?
- Unsteady means not held firmly in position; physically unstable.
- What is unsteady in Hindi?
- Unsteady in Hindi is अस्थिर (asthir), ढीला (ḍhīlā), अनियमित (aniymit). See Unsteady meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is unsteady?
- Unsteady can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce unsteady?
- Unsteady is pronounced /ʌnˈstɛdi/.
Words near unsteady in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unsteady (page history and authors); अधीर (Marathi) (page history and authors); خیلا (Urdu) (page history and authors); অস্থির (Bengali) (page history and authors); చపలము (Telugu) (page history and authors); unsteady (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); unsteady (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अनित्य (Sanskrit) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unsteady.wav.
Cite this entry: “unsteady.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unsteady. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.