Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Variant of wobble.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To incline to the one side and to the other alternately, as a wheel, top, spindle, or other rotating body when not properly balanced; move in the manner of a rotating disk when its plane vibrates from side to side; rock; vacillate.
- Hence To vacillate, vibrate, tremble, or exhibit unevenness, in senses other than mechanical.
- To cause to wabble: as, to wabble one's head.
- n. A rocking, unequal motion, as of a wheel unevenly hung or a top imperfectly balanced.
- n. The larva of the emasculating bot-fly, Cutiterebra emasculator, which infests squirrels in the United States; also, the injury or affection resulting from its presence. See warble, and cut under Cutiterebra. Also worble.
- n. An old name of the great auk, Alca impennis. Josselyn, New England Rarities Discovered.
Wiktionary
- v. wobble, move to and fro
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To move staggeringly or unsteadily from one side to the other; to vacillate; to move the manner of a rotating disk when the axis of rotation is inclined to that of the disk; -- said of a turning or whirling body.
- n. A hobbling, unequal motion, as of a wheel unevenly hung; a staggering to and fro.
Examples
“He found the mere repetition of the word "wabble" sufficient to produce almost inextinguishable mirth.”
“The least "wabble" might cause the current to strike her on the side, and send her over on her beam ends in the vortex below us.”
“We made our course at a right angle with the levee, and kept the helm firmly against any tendency to "wabble;" for if the swift tide had struck her on the side, it would have hurled her around in spite of us.”
“-- When an author has a number of books out a cunning hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or a quotation.”
“- When an author has a number of books out a cunning hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or a quotation.”
“wabble" with a key, or be tickled with seeing how bright distant things were in the telescope, all were attentive.”
Letter from Charles Phillips to David L. Swain, January 15, 1853
“It was funny to see his broken jaw wabble as he said it.”
“They fly true, slide thru the wind with less wabble and when they hit game, they penetrate thru and thru unless a huge elk and a bone stops them.”
“There was no wabble to the revolver and it was directed toward her stomach, not from an outstretched arm, but from the hip, against which the forearm rested.”
“Also, he saw that the revolver did not wabble, nor the hand shake, and he was thoroughly conversant with the size of hole the soft-nosed bullets could make.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wabble’.
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Twitchy
The (not always so) smoovements; scattered, oscillating, jerky, and unpredictable.
palpitation, scravel, jactitate, pounce, wobble, vibrate, undulate, didder, effleurage, flail, ague, swerve and 169 more...
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-bles
fine find endings
able, amble, bable, cable, cible, coble, dable, fable, gable, gible, tible, table and 241 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wabble.
chained_bear They might, but they dwon't fall dwown. Oct 28, 2009
madmouth and would Dweebles dwabble? Oct 28, 2009
bilby Is this what Weebles do? Dec 30, 2008