English Explanatory Dictionary

stagger

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion.
  2. A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling.
  3. Bewilderment; perplexity.
  4. The spacing out of various actions over time.
  5. The difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners.
  6. The horizontal positioning of a biplane, triplane, or multiplane's wings in relation to one another.
verb
  1. To sway unsteadily, reel, or totter.
  2. In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter.
  3. To cause to reel or totter.
  4. To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
  5. Doubt, waver, be shocked.
  6. To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.
  7. To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.
  8. Have multiple groups doing the same thing in a uniform fashion, but starting at different, evenly spaced, times or places (attested from 1856).
  9. To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
  10. To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next.
  11. To schedule in intervals or at different times.
noun
  1. One who attends a stag night.

Pronunciation

/ˈstæɡə/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-stagger.wav /ˈstæɡɚ/ /ˈsteɪ̯ɡɚ/

Word forms

stagger staggers staggering staggered

Etymology

From Middle English stakeren, from Old Norse stakra (“to push, stagger”). Cognate with dialectal Danish stagre.

Derived words

bestagger stagger breathe stagger breathing staggerbush staggerer staggering bob staggeringly stagger juice staggerment staggers stagger soup stagger-through staggerweed staggerwort staggery

Translations

Bulgarian: залитам Catalan: tentinejar Czech: potácet se Czech: vrávorat Dutch: wankelen Dutch: waggelen Finnish: hoiperrella Finnish: porrastaa French: tituber Galician: cambalear German: torkeln Ingrian: horjua Italian: barcollare Latin: titubō Latin: nūtō Middle English: stakeren Portuguese: cambalear Russian: шата́ться Spanish: tambalear Swedish: ragla Thai: เซ Irish: agaigh
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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