teeter

See also: Teeter

English

Etymology

Alteration of titter.

Pronunciation

Verb

teeter (third-person singular simple present teeters, present participle teetering, simple past and past participle teetered)

  1. (intransitive) To tilt back and forth on an edge.
    He teetered on the brink of the precipice.
    • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:
      The concrete floors of B2B sheds were already being built to an exacting degree of flatness, calibrated using lasers, so that forklifts would not teeter while lifting pallets to the highest shelves.
  2. (figuratively) To be indecisive.
    We teetered on the fence about buying getaway tickets and missed the opportunity.
  3. (figuratively) To be close to becoming a typically negative situation.
    Despite appearances, the firm was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

teeter (plural teeters)

  1. (Canada, US) A teeter-totter or seesaw.

Anagrams
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.