dodder1
/ˈdɒdə
/verb [no object] (often as adjective doddering)
Tremble or totter, typically because of old age: that doddering old fool...
- The Levi's name has grown into doddering old age in a brutally competitive apparel market.
- They come on Uncle Junior's recommendation, but they prove to be doddering old fools with bad or no eyesight.
- He is famous for doddering around with a camera crew in tow, picking up strange slithery beasts that look like they might bite him and poking sticks at them.
Synonyms
totter, teeter, toddle, hobble, shuffle, shamble, falter, walk haltingly, walk with difficulty, move falteringly, stumble, stagger, sway, lurch, reel;
wobble, shake, tremble, quiver;
Scottish & Northern English hirple
rare doddle
tottering, tottery, teetering, doddery, staggering, shuffling, shambling, faltering, shaking, shaky, unsteady, wobbly, wobbling, trembling, trembly, quivering;
feeble, frail, weak, weakly, infirm, decrepit;
aged, old, elderly, long in the tooth, in one's dotage, senile
Derivatives
dodderer
/ noun ...- Often dismissed as wrinklies and fogeys, dodderers and ditherers, it turns out that the company's target audience are, in fact, among the biggest consumers in the country.
- A government member labelled the retired military chiefs & diplomats as old dodderers.
- I have yet to discover that having been born when Cal Coolidge was gearing up to run for re-election confers any eminence upon this dodderer.
Origin
Early 17th century: variant of obsolete dialect dadder; related to dither.
Rhymes
dodder2
/ˈdɒdə/noun
A widely distributed parasitic climbing plant of the convolvulus family, with leafless thread-like stems that are attached to the host plant by means of suckers.
- Genus Cuscuta, family Convolvulaceae.
- By tying suitable stem explants of dodder to touch the host, Kelly observed that 60% of individuals rejected suitable hosts within several hours.
- Because C. arvensis is more closely related to the dodders than is tobacco, C. arvensis was also used as a control.
Origin
Middle English: related to Middle Low German doder, dodder, Middle High German toter.