teeter

Alteration of titter.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtiːtə/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtitəɹ/, [ˈtʰiɾɚ]

teeter (third-person singular simple present teeters, present participle teetering, simple past and past participle teetered)

1. (intransitive) To tilt back and forth on an edge.

   He teetered on the brink of the precipice.

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:

     The concrete floors of B2B sheds were already being built to an exacting degree of flatness, calibrated using lasers, so that forklifts would not teeter while lifting pallets to the highest shelves.

   • 2023 May 4, Frank Bruni, “Republicans Are Running Wild in My State”, in The New York Times‎:

     This is not a land of blowouts. It’s a middle ground, and that’s reflected in voter registration rolls. Nearly 2.6 million North Carolinians declare themselves unaffiliated, while just over 2.4 million identify as Democrats and just under 2.2 million as Republicans. We don’t tilt. We teeter.

2. (intransitive) To totter (move unsteadily).
3. (figuratively) To be indecisive.

   We teetered on the fence about buying getaway tickets and missed the opportunity.

4. (figuratively) To be close to becoming a typically negative situation.

   Despite appearances, the firm was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

• teeterer
• teeter-tail
• teeter-totter
• teeterboard

teeter (plural teeters)

1. (Canada, US) A teeter-totter or seesaw.

• terete