[f. TOTTER v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb TOTTER; oscillation, wavering, shaking as if about to fall.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), II. 387. That game is cleped ocillum in Latyn,… of cilleo cilles þat is forto mene toterynge.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 498/1. Toterynge, or waverynge, vacillacio.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 40. The Wayne or Cart must be lyned with sheets, lest with iogging and tottring of the carryage, the seede fall thorowe.
1672. Clarendon, Contempl. Ps., Tracts (1727), 280. The prodigious tottering and instability of that [church] they are about to enter.
1890. J. H. Stirling, Gifford Lect., xii. 262. If you totter already, the tottering against you of ever so many totterers will only floor you.
1919. Charles Fort, Book of the Damned, i. 7. Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by companions that have been damned alive.
