[f. TOTTER v. + -ING2.] That totters, in various senses of the verb.
1534. More, Comf. agst. Trib., IV. xxiv. (1847), 298. The three feet of this tottering stool.
1585. Abp. Sandys, Serm., xiv. 232. Our tottering boate is tossed in the stormie seas.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit. (1637), 642. The tottering walles of Caer-philli Castle.
1700. T. Brown, Amusem. Ser. & Com., ii. 12. The tottering Earth made them Giddy and Stumble.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, IX. xvii. She leans on her staff With a tottering step.
1877. Black, Green Past., xxxv. A tottering white-headed old man.
fig. 1554. Latimer, Disput. Oxford, in Foxe, A. & M. (1563), 980/1. That thys world hath bene, and yet is, a tottering world.
1649. Milton, Eikon., v. Wks. 1851, III. 375. A tottring and giddy Act rather then a settling.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, i. Wks. VIII. 158. The tottering imbecility of a new government.
1870. ‘H. Smart,’ Race for Wife, iii. Tottering coronets must be propped by wealthy alliances.
Hence Totteringly adv.
1578. T. Proctor, Gorg. Gallery, The Louer Desc. Ambition.
| Thus clyming one to others tayle, | |
| The bowes either breake, or footing fayle: | |
| Full totteringly. |
1660. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., I. (1682), 82. It seem’d to stand totteringly upon a pitiful foundation.
1798. Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 Jan., 2/4. The pope, Struggling most totteringly against the Falling Sickness, but all in vain.
1891. L. Keith, Lost Illusion, II. xii. 41. An old man totteringly and feebly cleaning a little vegetable-bed.
