Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To walk with short steps that tilt the body from side to side.
- v. To walk heavily and clumsily with a pronounced sway.
- n. A swaying gait: the waddle of ducks.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To sway or rock from side to side in walking; move with short, quick steps, throwing the body from one side to the other; walk in a tottering or vacillating manner; toddle.
- Synonyms Waddle, Toddle. Waddling is a kind of ungainly walking produced by the great weight or natural clumsiness of the walker; toddling is the movement of a child in learning to walk.
- To tread down by wading or waddling through, as high grass.
- n. The act of walking with a swaying or rocking motion from side to side; a clumsy, rocking gait, with short steps; a toddle.
- A dialectal form of wattle.
- n. The wane of the moon.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To walk with short steps, swaying the body from one side to the other, like a duck or very fat person; to move clumsily and totteringly along; to toddle; to stumble
- v. To trample or tread down, as high grass, by walking through it.
WordNet 3.0
- v. walk unsteadily
- n. walking with short steps and the weight tilting from one foot to the other
Etymologies
- Frequentative of wade.
Examples
“They sport strange growths on their neck and faces that even have odd names: the waddle is the loose skin on the neck and the snood is the fleshy protuberance that grows from the forehead and dangles over the beak.”
The Huffington Post: David Mizejewski: Turkeys Are True Animal Oddities
“Small, rotund and bespectacled, walking with what might be described as a waddle, Dominick never looked or felt remotely intimidating.”
“On the final chorus, everyone knew to let him take over, and take over he did, stretching the final yonder out until his waddle was the color of Jesus 'wound in the stain glass over the choir loft.”
“It was the traditional walk of his race, founded on the step of the lion; but the outward sweep of the legs, intended to represent the stride of the noble beast, appeared to me only to realise a very ludicrous kind of waddle, which made me ask”
“If shorter, the walk is a kind of waddle, the elbows inclining outwards; if longer, it is distinguished by a swinging motion, as if the person carried weights in his hands.”
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852
“This man speaks with a reverberating 'waddle' so it's hard to know what the hell he's ever saying.”
“I don't own bear pjs but I do own penguin pjs (no joke ... they even make you "waddle")”
“In the fall of 2005, Rep. Harman was recorded on tape saying she would "waddle" into the AIPAC matter if "you think it'll make a difference.”
“And one of the key factors will be their ability to waddle properly, and our judges will have the daunting role of identifying if their waddle is a real waddle or not a real waddle, and we'll probably have prizes for the top three in each age group. ”
“I remember her last name Waddington because it reminded me of waddle which is how she walked. ”
A Traitor to Memory
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘waddle’.
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movement (slow)
words describing slow action or movement
( randomness, descriptive )creep, crawl, plod, slouch, idle, lumber, tiptoe, bend, amble, mosey, saunter, loiter and 117 more...
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Perambulatory
let's move
dawdle, hie, lollop, promenade, stroll, amble, mosey, gallivant, waddle, galumph, traipse, galumph and 3 more...
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I am : moving
Words to describe gait and movement.
walk, run, trot, jog, canter, gallop, skip, crawl, slink, slither, amble, trundle and 69 more...
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