Teetering

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(pronounced tee-ter-ing) verb

Definition

1. moving unsteadily; tottering or wobbling. 2. hesitating in choice of one's opinions; wavering between different courses, positions, behaviors, etc.; vacillating. 3. closing in on or fast approaching a state of failure or collapse.

Main Example

• During the last several days of Liz Truss's premiership, the Daily Star (a British tabloid) was promoting its sarcastic comparison between the likely remaining duration of her government and the life of a head of lettuce it had picked up from the grocery store. And as you may have heard, that particular head of lettuce won. But don't give all the credit for that imaginative bit of biting humor to the Daily Star. It turns out that The Economist magazine, after observing that the Truss regime was beginning to teeter even though it had been in office for only a few days, printed a line saying "the Truss premiership has the shelf life of a head of lettuce." The Daily Star grabbed that analogy and began building on it.  

Workplace Examples

• We need to decide one way or the other. We can't just sit here teetering all morning. They expect our reply by noon.

• Well, for the first two days our negotiations teetered between success and failure. Then suddenly this afternoon we reached an agreement.

Other Examples

• someone teetering between investing their bonus check in a low risk, short-term bond fund and investing it in growth stocks which are trading close to their 52-week lows
• for you to teeter between making a long-term commitment to your present employer and going back to school full-time to pursue a graduate degree
• a company that is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy; the recent increase in U.S. mortgage rates further hurting an already teetering homebuilder
• wildlife preservationists struggling to ensure the survival of animal species that are teetering on the very edge of extinction
• in 1992, a teetering economy wrecking the first President Bush's chances of reelection

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