How to Use totter in a Sentence

totter

1 of 2 verb

• The child tottered across the room.
• He tottered away to bed.
• Girls in silk, taffeta and tulle tottered in sky-high heels.
  — San Francisco Chronicle, 5 May 2018
• Ubers didn’t pull up to the Kirkwood bars to pick up girls tottering on high heels.
  — Christine Fernando, Indianapolis Star, 11 Apr. 2020
• Kaneta took Ono by the hand and led him, tottering, into the main hall of the temple.
  — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 25 Oct. 2017
• Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is teeter-tottering on the edge of a huge merger.
  — James Parker, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2017
• Behind him, his son and grandson tottered along, hand in hand.
  — Azam Ahmed, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2019
• Past the age of fifty, the supple cynosure of the salons turned into something of a tottering wreck.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023
• But as the regime seemed to totter, its president turned to its old patron, Russia.
  — ABC News, 9 Jan. 2022
• Good talent comes and goes, the Blue Jackets totter on, and the Tortorella method never changes.
  — Kevin Paul Dupont, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Feb. 2021
• Nearby, newborn lambs totter around in their pen, and working dogs relax in cages on the beds of old pickup trucks.
  — Antonia Hitchens, Town & Country, 29 Aug. 2021
• The world watched mesmerized as the once-mighty Soviet Empire gave a sigh, tottered, and collapsed.
  — Simon Jenkins, Harper's magazine, 10 Apr. 2019
• But when the end of the economic cycle comes, investors should expect big losses even if banks don’t totter.
  — James MacKintosh, WSJ, 13 Sep. 2018
• There are few old patriarchs tottering down from the ranch house to quarterback the process, from picking to pressing to the first prospecting sip.
  — Kyle Stock, latimes.com, 19 Feb. 2018
• The fawn tottered on its spindly legs as Maggie, a 1-year-old Labrador retriever, walked over to investigate.
  — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 15 May 2018
• The revived probes come as Brazil’s once-tottering economy improves and its stock market posts one of the world’s best rallies.
  — Julia Leite, Bloomberg.com, 6 Mar. 2018
• Lawrence and Season Lee were marching on a highway with their 3-year-old daughter, who tottered along in pink galoshes.
  — Austin Ramzy, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Aug. 2019
• There is a tortuous pleasure in watching the book totter under the weight of its contradictions.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2022
• And the Steele dossier is now the tottering last soldier standing in the Democratic denial therapy over the election result.
  — Conrad Black, National Review, 18 Oct. 2017
• And if that feels like too much heel to totter around in, a classic sneaker, such as Nike’s Air Jordans, is a perfect pairing for another classic: a Dior suit.
  — WSJ, 23 Aug. 2022
• Now, the teeter is beginning to totter again – and motorists, as well as trucking companies, airlines, and other oil consumers, could land with a thud as oil prices rise.
  — Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 May 2017
• A year ago, China came to Davos with one highly important task: calm the world down about its tottering financial markets.
  — Alex Frangos, WSJ, 16 Jan. 2017
• But there are no indicators that the North Korean economy is tottering on the brink.
  — John Delury, Washington Post, 18 Apr. 2018
• To inject a little perspective, Carolina was 2-5 at this point last season and tottering far more than this.
  — Scott Fowler, charlotteobserver, 22 Oct. 2017
• The twin turbines of a Dornier 228 cargo plane roar to life as the bulging khaki figures totter single file up through the side door and into the plane’s belly, which is packed with pallets of firefighting equipment that will be dropped with them.
  — Mark Jenkins, National Geographic, 12 June 2019
• Ozzy was his usual man-child self, tottering around stage and gleefully powering though classic metal with a grin.
  — Jeffrey Lee Puckett, The Courier-Journal, 1 Oct. 2017
• The McCreadie family is now taking care of his daughter, who tottered around the warehouse in a sparkly blue dress holding a dragonfly balloon.
  — Alex Demarban, Alaska Dispatch News, 23 Sep. 2017
• The world tech elites seek doesn’t adapt to the rank-and-file; the rank-and-file adapts to it, navigating the tottering jobs and cramped quarters that ever-wealthier plutocrats insist are hallmarks of innovation.
  — Julianne Tveten, The New Republic, 31 May 2018
• But when Lehman Brothers, a firm about 50% larger than Bear, began to totter six months later, the Treasury unaccountably reversed its policy.
  — Peter J. Wallison, WSJ, 4 Mar. 2018
• Until that happens, Auburn will continue to totter offensively in search of answers.
  — Tom Green | [e-mail], al, 12 Oct. 2022

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totter

2 of 2 noun

• The most stable place on a teeter-totter is in the middle.
  — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 12 Jan. 2021
• The survival of the teeter-totter of our democracy is very much in the balance.
  — Star Tribune, 2 Oct. 2020
• Others spin hula hoops, or leap through the air with a large teeter-totter.
  — Anne Nickoloff, cleveland.com, 7 May 2018
• At 123 feet long, the teeter-totter is big enough to hold several people at a time.
  — Jay Jones, chicagotribune.com, 26 Sep. 2019
• Teams were awarded points for every second the teeter totter swung toward their side.
  — Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 8 Apr. 2018
• Six robots at a time would square off in the arena, scrabbling at yellow milk crates and trying to lift them onto a 6-foot teeter totter.
  — Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 8 Apr. 2018
• Image Bit totters on perilously high leopard-print heels, and sports a pink wig and mismatched clothes.
  — New York Times, 25 May 2018
• When Cvechko told the children to come to the car, Kambria unknowingly walked across the pit’s lid, which flipped like a teeter-totter, sending her through the narrow opening.
  — Washington Post, 4 Feb. 2020
• But as we near a few huts made of branches and draped with mosquito netting, a slender woman in a worn T-shirt and sari totters toward us.
  — Ann Gibbons, Science | AAAS, 17 May 2018
• But my view of teeter-totters isn't the only thing my month at Xtreme Ninja Warrior altered forever.
  — Zachary Lewis, cleveland.com, 11 May 2017
• Passersby couldn’t help but spot the eight-foot long, bright yellow teeter-totter, ridden by youth of the church the weekend of March 19-20, in an effort to raise funds for local non-profit agencies.
  — Rich Heileman, cleveland, 25 Mar. 2022
• Embiid’s long legs are in effect like long teeter-totters, exerting greater loads on his hips and ankles.
  — Tom Avril, Philly.com, 23 Jan. 2018
• This effectively eliminates the very need for the teeter-totter itself.
  — Star Tribune, 2 Oct. 2020
• The first of what will be two Immunity Challenges tonight basically involves building a house of cards on a teeter totter.
  — Joan Morris, The Mercury News, 17 May 2017
• Resembling a teeter-totter, passengers board X-Scream's coaster-like vehicle some 900 feet in the air.
  — Arthur Levine, USA TODAY, 18 Sep. 2017
• There are berms, embedded rocks, ramps, teeter totters and other special features.
  — Joe Rubino, The Denver Post, 30 May 2017
• Instead of stitching the hipbelt to the back panel, Kelty feeds it behind the lumbar pad and allows it a few millimeters of movement, as if each wing of the hipbelt were a playground teeter-totter.
  — Kelly Bastone, Outside Online, 13 July 2018
• The bow teeter-totters delicately over two large industrial light bulbs planted in a crude wooden bowl.
  — Joseph Giovannini, New York Times, 28 June 2018
• The bathrooms totter between old and new, featuring old-school black and white honeycomb tiles, sliding glass shower doors, and sweet white shutters that conceal the marble bathtubs from the bedroom.
  — Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Oct. 2017
• But its opponent already totters, weakened by an addiction to debt.
  — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 22 Mar. 2018
• Other kids explore the interactive playhouse, wobble on the four-person teeter-totter, play at the sand and water tables, make music at the activity centers, and climb, slide and swing.
  — Ann Norman, cleveland.com, 2 Nov. 2017
• Surrealism takes wing as the known world totters; the authority figures, a doctor and nurses who supervise the Boy after his overindulgence, turn out to be tipplers.
  — Alastair MacAulay, New York Times, 23 May 2017
• Lee’s most memorable speech bubbles totter on the edge between speech, poetry, and outright doggerel.
  — Noah Berlatsky, The Verge, 13 Nov. 2018
• The unprecedented thing this time is we’re experiencing, in effect, a third-party presidency that’s broken the teeter-totter and split both parties.
  — San Francisco Chronicle, 21 Mar. 2018
• But in recent months, the two seem to occupy opposite ends of a teeter-totter, with consumers continuing to spend while business owners and managers are chastened by doubt and uncertainty.
  — Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 4 Nov. 2019
• There will also be a 4-foot grade change that will include hill slides and hill play, two 12-foot towers with climbing features and tunnel slides, an at-grade spinner, accessible teeter-totter, accessible zip line, swing set and a toddler playhouse.
  — Cathy Kozlowicz, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 17 July 2019
• Like a playground teeter-totter, when one was down, the other was up and ruled as the dominant political grouping until the other provided voters with a more attractive alternative.
  — San Francisco Chronicle, 21 Mar. 2018
• Anyone who's anyone has been asked to help reopen California and rebuild an economy some experts say totters toward a depression.
  — Arlene Martinez, USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2020
• There is a seamless convergence between Atlanta’s hot-wing culture and Korea’s fried-chicken culture: an emphasis on shattering crispiness and a balance in flavors, most notably the lip-smacking teeter-totter of sour and sweet.
  — New York Times, 12 Jan. 2022
• No, this episode was just a perfect encapsulation of the everyday frenetic energy with which these women sprint (and somehow simultaneously totter) through life.
  — Jodi Walker, EW.com, 1 May 2020

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024