How to Use totter in a Sentence

totter

1 of 2 verb
  • The child tottered across the room.
  • He tottered away to bed.
  • Behind him, his son and grandson tottered along, hand in hand.
    — Azam Ahmed, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2019
  • Now, even that tiny effort is tottering.
    — Mark Z. Barabak, Mercury News, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Now, even that tiny effort is tottering.
    — Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Ubers didn’t pull up to the Kirkwood bars to pick up girls tottering on high heels.
    — Christine Fernando, Indianapolis Star, 11 Apr. 2020
  • On the floor, waist-high piles of books tottered like miniature leaning towers of Pisa.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Monitor, 12 June 2025
  • Kaneta took Ono by the hand and led him, tottering, into the main hall of the temple.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 25 Oct. 2017
  • But as the regime seemed to totter, its president turned to its old patron, Russia.
    — ABC News, 9 Jan. 2022
  • 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
  • Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is teeter-tottering on the edge of a huge merger.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2017
  • 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 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
  • 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
  • There is a tortuous pleasure in watching the book totter under the weight of its contradictions.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2022
  • 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
  • Models are tottering on the cobblestoned Bond Street with their heels getting stuck in the rivets.
    — Nate Freeman, Vanity Fair, 13 Feb. 2026
  • 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
  • The world watched mesmerized as the once-mighty Soviet Empire gave a sigh, tottered, and collapsed.
    — Simon Jenkins, Harper's magazine, 10 Apr. 2019
  • Good talent comes and goes, the Blue Jackets totter on, and the Tortorella method never changes.
    — Kevin Paul Dupont, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Feb. 2021
  • Lawrence and Season Lee were marching on a highway with their 3-year-old daughter, who tottered along in pink galoshes.
    — Austin Ramzy, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2019
  • 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
  • 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
  • Until that happens, Auburn will continue to totter offensively in search of answers.
    — Tom Green | [email protected], al, 12 Oct. 2022
  • 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 sun rising outside your window illuminates an elephant tottering down the street, its legs impossibly skinny stilts a hundred feet tall.
    — Devin Powell, Discover Magazine, 28 Sep. 2018
  • Elderly, and fatally trusting, she is shown tottering around with her pink wig on backward, slugging gin and falling drunkenly into a toilet.
    — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 26 Sep. 2017
  • 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
  • Meanwhile, her free spirit increasingly totters on the erratic, putting her on the spectrum between bipolar and schizophrenic.
    — Ellen Emry Heltzel, The Seattle Times, 28 Jan. 2018

totter

2 of 2 noun
  • Others spin hula hoops, or leap through the air with a large teeter-totter.
    — Anne Nickoloff, cleveland.com, 7 May 2018
  • The survival of the teeter-totter of our democracy is very much in the balance.
    — Star Tribune, 2 Oct. 2020
  • Teams were awarded points for every second the teeter totter swung toward their side.
    — Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 8 Apr. 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
  • The whole book feels like a teeter-totter between the author’s own hero worship of the subject and his gawking at the tragedy.
    — Jason Diamond, Bon Appétit, 9 Nov. 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
  • Image Bit totters on perilously high leopard-print heels, and sports a pink wig and mismatched clothes.
    — New York Times, 25 May 2018
  • But its opponent already totters, weakened by an addiction to debt.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 22 Mar. 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
  • This effectively eliminates the very need for the teeter-totter itself.
    — Star Tribune, 2 Oct. 2020
  • 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
  • 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
  • Lee’s most memorable speech bubbles totter on the edge between speech, poetry, and outright doggerel.
    — Noah Berlatsky, The Verge, 13 Nov. 2018
  • 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
  • The Mets had not lost a series all season, but that streak sailed when the Seattle Mariners closed out a teeter-totter affair Sunday.
    — New York Times, 15 May 2022
  • Two flaps beneath the nose work in tandem with the tail configuration to keep the air pressure level across the car, eliminating the teeter-totter effect.
    — Basem Wasef, Robb Report, 22 Oct. 2022
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Too many economists who damned well should know better at this point still hold to a theory called the Phillips Curve, which claims an inverse, teeter-totter relationship between inflation and unemployment rates.
    — Erik Sherman, Forbes, 18 Dec. 2022
  • 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

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'totter.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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