[-ING1.] The action of the verb WAVER, in various senses.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, VI. 584. The hund alwais followit the kyng, And changit nocht for na parting, Bot ay followit the kyngis tras, But vaueryng, as he passit was.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 2224. I watte be thi wauerynge, thow willnez aftyre sorowe.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke vi. 12–6. Whan the people wer in a waueryng and mammeryng what he was.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., E 3 b. Had you rested them on the true Rocke, they had beene ruine-proofe; but now the raine wil rough-enter through the crannies of theyr wauering.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. § 8. 13. Massiue bodies … haue certaine trepidations and wauerings before they fixe and settle.
a. 1768. Secker, Serm. (1770), IV. 2. Why this perpetual Wavering and Fluctuation, about the first thing, that you ought to fix.
1816. Jane Austen, Emma, xxii. Had there been no pain to her friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind, Emma would have been amused by its variations.
1828–41. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 120. The wavering of the English lines was now discernible by the Scottish soldiers.
1831. Alford, in Life (1873), 68. Quick waverings about of bands of light such as take place in the Polar Auroras.
1868. E. Edwards, Ralegh, I. xx. 443. The King’s wavering between a course of clemency and one of rigour.
