Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The staggering or stumbling gait characteristic of certain nervous disorders.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of stumbling or staggering; a tottering.
- noun In medicine, restlessness; an inclination to constant change of position; fidgets.
- noun The act of rocking or rolling, as a curved body on a plane.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of stumbling, rocking, or rolling; a reeling.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of stumbling, rocking, or rolling; a reeling.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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So that if their titubation was excessive, then their spilling must have been excessive, and in that case they must have practised almost total abstinence.
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As the camels and dromedaries of a caravan, continued Pantagruel, use to drink for the thirst that's past, for the present, and for that to come, so did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion to the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which our crackbrained astrologers make such a pother.
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 4 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518
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Pantagruel, use to drink for the thirst that’s past, for the present, and for that to come, so did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion to the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which our crackbrained astrologers make such a pother.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
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Pantagruel, use to drink for the thirst that’s past, for the present, and for that to come, so did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion to the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which our crackbrained astrologers make such a pother.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
whichbe commented on the word titubation
A staggering or unsteadiness of walk or posture.
This word is mostly in medical use, to describe some abnormal way of walking or of holding oneself, usually as a symptom of a cerebral or spinal disease. It comes directly from the Latin verb titubare, which could mean "stutter" as well as "stumble", and this former meaning occasionally surfaced in English, though it is long since obsolete. Outside medicine, titubation has been used facetiously to refer to unsteadiness brought on by too much of the demon drink.
(from World Wide Words)
May 13, 2008