wobble

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Dutch wabbelen (“to move to and fro”), recorded from 1543 and now obsolete, or its cognate borrowed from Low German wabbeln (“to move to and fro, wobble, dangle”);^[2] most dictionaries name only the Low German verb.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][1]} The OED compares West Frisian wabbelje (“to move unsteadily”), and the verb is cognate with Middle High German wabelen (“to waver, move restlessly”) and Old Norse vafla (“to hover about, totter”),^[2][3][4][9] which is related to vafra (“to move unsteadily”).^[3][4] These are suffixed forms of the Germanic base of wave, which also gave waver with another suffix.^[2][10][11] Etymonline reconstructs Proto-Germanic *wab- (“to move back and forth”) and, after Watkins, perhaps Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to weave”);^[4][6] Merriam-Webster and Klein compare Old English wǣfre (“wavering, restless”),^[5][9] and the OED and Dictionary.com wæflian (“to babble, speak incoherently”).^[2][8] Weekley took it as a frequentative of a dialect wap, akin to Middle English quappen (“to tremble”),^[12] and Partridge as echoic.^[13] Until the mid 19th century it was usually spelled wabble;^[14] Barnhart and Etymonline date the spelling with -o- to the 1850s.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a missile or other moving object, to travel unsteadily: 1603, in J. Willoughbie's Mnemosynon Kyrio-euchariston.^[2] Of a person or animal, to walk unsteadily from side to side: 1657, in R. Ligon's True History of Barbados,^[2] the date Merriam-Webster gives;^[5] Barnhart has wabling in 1657 and wabble in 1677,^[3] and Etymonline dates it to the 1650s.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From movement in a line the verb spread to anything that shakes or rocks: loose flesh or jelly quivering (1748, in Richardson's Clarissa), something stationary rocking (1772), and, transitively, making something rock (1816).^[2] Figurative senses came in the 19th century: to waver between opinions (1867) and, of a voice, to quaver (1885).^[2] The noun is first recorded in 1672, in Josselyn's New-Englands Rarities, as a North American name of the great auk, apparently from its wobbling gait;^[2] the noun for an unsteady motion dates from 1699, first in astronomy, for a small periodic variation in a celestial body's motion.^[2][15][4] It came to mean a hesitation in 1804, in Coleridge, and a quaver of the voice in 1839;^[2] in Australia the wobbles was from 1886 a disease of livestock blamed on eating the leaves of plants of the family Zamiaceae,^[2] and the biochemical sense, for the loose pairing of bases in transfer RNA, is first recorded in 1965, in F. H. C. Crick.^[2] Between 1725 and 1893 the verb also meant to bubble or boil, first in slang and later in the dialect of the Midlands, a sense now obsolete.^[2] In Scots and English dialect it was used of walking with a weak, tottering step, in the forms wabble, wable and wauble.^[16]

Timeline

• 1603 – of a moving object, to travel unsteadily.^[2]
• 1657 – of a person or animal, to move unsteadily from side to side.^[2][5][3]
• 1672 – noun, a North American name of the great auk (now historical).^[2]
• 1699 – noun, a small periodic variation in the motion of a celestial body.^[2][15]
• 1725 – to bubble, to boil (obsolete by 1893).^[2]
• 1748 – of loose flesh or jelly, to quiver.^[2]
• 1772 – of something stationary, to rock unsteadily.^[2]
• 1804 – noun, a hesitation or instance of uncertainty.^[2]
• 1816 – transitive, to make something rock.^[2]
• 1823 – noun, an unsteady movement or rocking motion in general.^[2]
• 1839 – noun, a quaver in the voice.^[2]
• 1851 – the spelling wobble.^[4]
• 1867 – to waver between opinions.^[2]
• 1885 – of the voice, to quaver.^[2]
• 1965 – noun, in biochemistry, the variable base pairing of transfer RNA.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To move, rock or sway unsteadily from side to side: The table wobbles on the uneven floor.^[7][6][5][2]
2. Of a voice or sound, to tremble or quaver: His voice wobbled as he read the letter.^[7][6][2]
3. To waver or vacillate between opinions or courses of action.^[7][6][5][2]
4. To make something wobble.^[7][6][2]

Noun

1. An unsteady rocking or swaying motion.^[7][6][5][2]
2. A variation in the pitch or strength of a sound, especially of the voice; in singing, an uncontrolled vibrato.^[6][15][2]
3. A moment of hesitation, uncertainty or instability.^[2][10]
4. (astronomy) A small periodic variation in the motion of the earth or another celestial body.^[2]
5. (biochemistry) The loose pairing allowed between the base at one end of a transfer RNA anticodon and the matching base of the codon.^[2]

Word family

• wobbler
• wobbly

Related words

• wabble
• waver
• wave

Usage notes

In Ireland wobble meant to lather the face for shaving,^[16][17] and in Warwickshire and Worcestershire to sell liquor without a licence, the wobbling-shop being an unlicensed alehouse.^[16] In US drug slang wobble or wobble weed is the drug PCP.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com