1.
[syn: hesitation, waver, falter, faltering]
ADJECTIVE (1)
1. unsteady in speech or action;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Falter \Fal"ter\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Faltered; p. pr. & vb.
n. Faltering.] [OE. falteren, faltren, prob. from fault.
See Fault, v. & n.]
1. To hesitate; to speak brokenly or weakly; to stammer; as,
his tongue falters.
[1913 Webster]
With faltering speech and visage incomposed.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. To tremble; to totter; to be unsteady. "He found his legs
falter." --Wiseman.
[1913 Webster]
3. To hesitate in purpose or action.
[1913 Webster]
Ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
4. To fail in distinctness or regularity of exercise; -- said
of the mind or of thought.
[1913 Webster]
Here indeed the power of disinct conception of space
and distance falters. --I. Taylor.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Faltering \Fal"ter*ing\, a.
Hesitating; trembling. "With faltering speech." --Milton. --
n. Falter; halting; hesitation. -- Fal"ter*ing*ly, adv.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
faltering
adj 1: unsteady in speech or action
n 1: the act of pausing uncertainly; "there was a hesitation in
his speech" [syn: hesitation, waver, falter,
faltering]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
90 Moby Thesaurus words for "faltering":
ambling, balbutient, bashful, boggling, cautious, circumspect,
claudicant, crawling, creeping, creeping like snail, deliberate,
demurring, diffident, easy, flagging, foot-dragging, gentle,
gradual, halting, hesitant, hesitating, hobbled, hobbling, idle,
indecisive, indolent, irresolute, jibbing, languid, languorous,
lazy, leisurely, limping, lukewarm, lumbering, moderate, modest,
poking, poky, qualmish, relaxed, reluctant, sauntering, scrupling,
scrupulous, shilly-shallying, shrinking, shuffling, shy, slack,
slothful, slow, slow as death, slow as molasses, slow as slow,
slow-crawling, slow-foot, slow-going, slow-legged, slow-moving,
slow-paced, slow-poky, slow-running, slow-sailing, slow-stepped,
sluggish, snail-paced, snaillike, squeamish, staggering,
stammering, sticking, stickling, straining, strolling, stumbling,
stuttering, tentative, timid, toddling, tortoiselike, tottering,
trudging, turtlelike, uncertain, unhurried, vacillatory, waddling,
wavering, wobbly