• (RP) IPA: /ˈtɒtə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈtɑːtɚ/

totter (totters, present participle tottering; past and past participle tottered) (intransitive)

1. To walk, move or stand unsteadily or falteringly; threatening to fall.

   The baby tottered from the table to the chair.

   The old man tottered out of the pub into the street.

   The car tottered on the edge of the cliff.

2. (figurative) To be on the brink of collapse.
   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene ii], page 11 ↗:

     {...}}the folly of this Iland, they ſay there's but fiue vpon this Iſle ; we are three of them, if th' other two be brain'd like vs, the State totters.

3. (archaic) To collect junk or scrap.

• (move unsteadily) reel, teeter, toddle, stagger, sway

• French: tituber
• German: schwanken, taumeln, torkeln
• Italian: barcollare
• Russian: ковыля́ть
• Spanish: tambalearse, bascular, dar tumbos

totter (plural totters)

1. An unsteady movement or gait.
2. (archaic) A rag and bone man.

• French: chute, écroulement
• German: Schwanken, Taumeln, Torkeln
• Portuguese: cambalear