Also 8–9 Sc. wauble. [Corresponds to Upper, Middle and Low G. wab(b)eln: cf. MHG. wabelen to move restlessly, and ON. vafla (synonymous with vafra WAVER v.): f. Teut. wab- (see WAVE v.). A parallel Teut. wap- appears in LG. wappeln, ON. vappa to waddle, OE. wapolian to bubble. (Cf. SWABBLE v.)]
1. intr. Of a person or animal: To move from side to side unsteadily or with uncertain direction.
1657. [see WOBBLING ppl. a.].
1694. trans. Marten’s Voy. Spitzbergen, in Acc. Sev. Late Voy. (1711), II. 91. This Bird is a Diver … They go wabbling from side to side. Ibid., 101. When they go to fly up they wabble a great way before they can raise themselves upon the Wind.
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4178/4. Advt., Wabbles in his walking.
1749. Mrs. Delany, Autobiogr. (1861), II. 515. James came wabbling on with the broken equipage, his Fribbleship much ruffled.
1786. Burns, Auld Farmer’s Salut. Mare, vii. Ye … ran them ’till they a’ did wauble, Far, far, behin’.
1789. D. Davidson, Seasons, 156. The snipe … Starts frae the slimy drain; and, to the spring … now waubles fast.
1833. Carlyle, Cagliostro, Ess. 1872, V. 73. ‘The two pinions on which History soars’—or flutters and wabbles.
1856. Whyte-Melville, Kate Cov., vi. 69. Such a figure I never saw on a horse!… bumping when she trots, and wobbling when she canters.
1896. H. G. Wells, Wheels of Chance, viii. 55. He resumed the treadles, staring away before him, jolted over a stone, wabbled, recovered, and began riding faster at once, with his eyes ahead.
b. Of a piece of mechanism, a top, a missile, etc.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., iii. 45. The wheel … would not move perpendicularly, but wabble towards the Fore or Backsides of the Jack frame. Ibid. (1680), xii. 215. If in going about of your Work you find it Wabble, that is, that one side of the Flat incline either to the Right or Left Hand.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), To Wabble, to wriggle about as an Arrow sometimes does in the Air.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, IV. xv. [A] hat … which … wabbles over your eyes and ears.
1828–32. Webster, s.v., A top wabbles, when it is in motion, and deviates from a perpendicular direction; a spindle wabbles, when it moves one way and the other.
1884. E. P. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., June, 88/1. Well, now, watch the floats. If you see one bob under and wobble, a shad has struck the net near it.
1884. Sat. Rev., 6 Sept., 320/2. A projectile from a smoothbore is apt to ‘wobble’ and go wide.
c. To bubble; to boil. Now dial.
1725. New Canting Dict., Wobble, to boil. The Pot wobbles, i. e. The Pot boils.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., xv. III. 397. Sir Frederick smoked his chilum … and whiffed and ‘wobbled,’ and wore away the evening.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., Wabble, to boil fast.
d. To shake or quiver like a jelly or fleshy body.
1748. [see WOBBLING ppl. a.].
1854. R. S. Surtees, Handley Cr., xxxvi. Away Jorrocks went, wobbling like a great shape of red Noyeau jelly.
1875. Howells, Foregone Conclus., xvii. Her chin wobbled pathetically.
1881. W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., April, 643/2. He wabbled with laughter at the delicious absurdity of the reminiscence.
e. To move unsteadily from side to side or backwards and forwards (without progression). Also fig.
1858. H. Mayhew, Upper Rhine, iv. 214. From the mouth of the … figure a long tongue … was made to wabble.
1865. Baring-Gould, Were-wolves, xv. 264. You see it well in old women: how the last teeth wobble.
1878. Tyndall, Fragm. Sci. (1879), II. xiii. 307. The field of the microscope is crowded with organisms, some wabbling slowly.
1895. S. Crane, Red Badge, xiii. His knees wobbled.
1903. G. H. Lorimer, Lett. Self-Made Merch., xix. 288. He went to the instrument and shouted ‘Hello!’ in what he tried to make a big, brave voice, but it wobbled a little all the same.
2. fig. To hesitate or waver between different opinions or courses of action; to be inclined to favor first one side and then the other.
1884. Leicester Chron., 20 Sept., 5/3. The Standard … has, perhaps with a sigh of relief, wobbled back to its old ways.
1885. Dilke, in Life (1917), II. 111. The other members of the Cabinet either wobbled backwards and forwards, or did not care.
1906. G. W. E. Russell, Social Silhouettes, 161. You are returned as a Liberal or as a Conservative, and, if you wobble or rat or play the Candid Friend, you are only too likely to find yourself cast at the next election.
3. trans. To cause to move unsteadily from side to side.
1831. T. Allen, Hist. Co. York, III. 4. The convex surface, with its glass pieces, is then turned and wabbled in the concave basin by steam power.
1881. P. M. Duncan, in Academy, 23 April, 303/3. One of the rigidly armoured Silurian fishes which learned to snap at its prey, and got more food by the attempt to wobble its cranium.
4. U.S. To crumple up.
1869. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, vi. (1874), 119. The dish-towels dirty, and the dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink.
1884. E. P. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., June, 88/1. The great point is to keep the net straight, and not all tangled and wobbled up.
5. Comb.: wobble-heat, a form of heat-energy caused by vibration; wobble-saw; a circular saw mounted askew on its spindle so as to cut a groove wider than its own thickness.
1899. Lockyer, in Nature, 20 April, 585/2. To get concrete images of these effects we spoke of path-heat, spin-heat, and *wobble-heat.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2717. *Wabble-saw.
1917. H. W. Durham, Saws, 53. ‘Drunken’ or ‘Wobble’ saws.
