wobbly
/ˈwɒbli
/adjective (wobblier, wobbliest)
1Tending to move unsteadily from side to side: the car had a wobbly wheel...
- You pack all your worldly goods into the car, travel to a muddy field, transfer all your worldly goods into a wobbly tin box on wheels and then sit and wait for the monsoon to begin.
- More minor things also contribute, like pitted headsets, untrue wheels, wobbly tires and out-of-balance wheels.
- It's only the e-commerce equivalent of an electronic shopping cart developing a wobbly wheel, so you can only make it turn left - just like a real shopping cart.
Synonyms
unsteady, unstable, shaky, rocky, rickety;
flimsy, frail, spindly, unsafe, precarious, insecure;
uneven, unbalanced
informal teetery
British informal wonky, dicky
1.1(Of a person) weak and unsteady from illness, tiredness, or anxiety: she still felt a bit wobbly on her legs...
- I'll not have my best student coming back with a weak sword arm and wobbly legs.
- I started to feel very weak and wobbly and my legs gave way beneath me and I collapsed.
- No wonder he is more wobbly after all that drink.
Synonyms
shaky, trembling, shaking, tremulous, quivering, quivery, doddery, unsteady
informal trembly
faint, dizzy, light-headed, giddy;
weak, weak-kneed, weak at the knees, quivery, unsteady, groggy, muzzy
informal trembly, all of a tremble, all of a quiver, like jelly, with rubbery legs, woozy
rare vertiginous
1.2Uncertain, wavering, or insecure: the evening got off to a wobbly start...
- The system in this country is so insecure and so wobbly.
- It was more along the lines of a very uncertain, wobbly romance that might fall apart at any second.
- I think my Nokia problem stems from a wobbly disconnect that I attempted when I noticed someone had sent me a 2.5 MB attachment.
1.3(Of a person or voice) tending to move out of tone or slightly vary in pitch: a wobbly soprano...
- Charlotte Church shot to fame as the little schoolgirl with the big wobbly voice.
- In Dragoni's first big scene she was wobbly, her voice broke, she tried singing lower, and crumbled on every big note.
- A small, wobbly voice cut through the comforting blackness and oblivion, just audible above the constant hiss of the waves breaking on the slimy, moss-covered stone outside.
1.4(Of a line or handwriting) not straight or regular.Grace and Vahn the title said, in Ellie's large, wobbly handwriting....
- I noticed that she neglected to sign it, and her handwriting was rather wobbly and etchy, as if her hand was shaking when she wrote it.
- Lustig added that the writing was wobbly, so she gave high praise to the Issaquah mail-sorting system.
noun [in singular] British informal
1A fit of temper or panic: my daughter threw a wobbly when I wouldn’t let her play...
- Take this one insurance company, for example, which last week threw a wobbly over the £2m pay-off for, former British Airways boss.
- And when my grand-children cluster round me and ask what it was like when he threw a wobbly on a daytime chatshow, what a story I will have to tell.
- I had a fight with Josh, and threw a wobbly with everyone else to get my own way.
1.1 (the wobblies) A fit of panic: the driver was having an attack of the wobblies
Derivatives
wobbliness
- I felt very well, apart from some slight wobbliness at the end of day three as I was packing up.
- By way of punishment, we were to spend every day after school for a whole two weeks tightening up the screws on every single chair in the establishment, and hammering home wooden wedges to ensure that wobbliness was a thing of the past.
- Rich salt-mines created a town not only of great substance but also of great wobbliness, as the saltworks wreaked architectural havoc for over 1100 years.