How to Use teeter in a Sentence

teeter

1 of 2 verb
Definition of teeternext
Synonyms for teeternext
  • The pile of books teetered and fell to the floor.
  • She teetered down the street in her high heels.
  • Yet there’s still a sense that L.A. is teetering on the edge.
    — Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Video from the agency showed the demise of one home as ocean waves caused the stilts supporting the house to teeter and fall.
    — Jamiel Lynch and Jennifer Henderson, CNN, 11 May 2022
  • Thailand has teetered on the brink of meltdown for almost half a year now.
    — Time, 26 July 2023
  • The equally high price points, which often teeter in the triple digits for pots, pans, blenders and more.
    — Melissa Lee, USA TODAY, 7 Aug. 2020
  • The current war raging in Ukraine means happiness in other parts of the world could teeter as well.
    — Marnie Hunter, CNN, 17 Mar. 2022
  • And as the finances of the tech world teetered, more than $3 billion came gushing into Brex’s accounts.
    — Time, 9 July 2023
  • The longer the markets teeter, the more firms will be compelled to more actively start investing again.
    — Colin Darretta, Forbes, 9 Aug. 2022
  • An owlish owner who happens to know what’s in that teetering tower by the door.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2023
  • Since college football’s house of cards started to teeter over the weekend, there has been pushback.
    — Ann Killion, SFChronicle.com, 10 Aug. 2020
  • The tiny Caribbean nation of Haiti is teetering on the brink of collapse.
    — Maham Javaid, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024
  • Mike Woodson's third season at IU is teetering on the edge.
    — Zach Osterman, The Indianapolis Star, 18 Jan. 2024
  • Genesis is the latest in a parade of crypto firms to teeter near collapse.
    — Harold Maass, The Week, 6 Jan. 2023
  • In parts of the world, such as Iran, the heat index is teetering toward the threshold of what the human body can tolerate.
    — WIRED, 2 Aug. 2023
  • That means that vote after vote over the next two years will likely teeter on a parliamentary cliff.
    — Fox News, 10 Jan. 2023
  • She is caught in a moment of transition on a bridge that appears to teeter in the bright sunlight like an unbalanced scale.
    — Helen A. Cooper, WSJ, 10 June 2022
  • And in the case of Canadian Bakin’s Q-Becco bagel sandwich, can even teeter on transcendence.
    — Matt Wake | [email protected], al, 27 Aug. 2020
  • Advertisement Our recent lack of rain has the region teetering on the edge of drought.
    — Matt Ross, Washington Post, 30 May 2023
  • Although this stylish brand is loved by women worldwide, prices for the famous shapewear tend to teeter on the more expensive side of spectrum.
    — Melissa Lee, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2021
  • Many of the targets teetered on the edge of homelessness and were caught with a few grams of meth or with only drug paraphernalia — a glass pipe or used syringe.
    — Nate Rosenfield Rory Doyle For The New York Times, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2023
  • At the time, ACA reform efforts teetered as interest groups feuded and Democrats struggled to settle on a plan.
    — Phil Galewitz, USA TODAY, 24 July 2023
  • But the Rufous hummingbird, like hundreds of other species, is teetering on the edge.
    — Amy Chillag, CNN, 3 Sep. 2023
  • On this planet, all fates are intertwined, and right now, one million species are teetering on the edge of oblivion.
    — Vulture, 16 Aug. 2023
  • There’s long been an expectation that women would teeter down the red carpet on stilettos.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2020
  • Interplay would teeter on the verge of bankruptcy, and sell one of its most valuable assets, the Fallout franchise, to Bethesda in 2007.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PCMAG, 10 Oct. 2022
  • When Sunny moved to New York in 2001, her symptoms began teetering off.
    — Dominique Fluker, Essence, 17 Oct. 2023
  • Shelves of dense snowpack seemed to teeter on the verge of collapse on every mountainside adjacent to our small aircraft.
    — Sunset Magazine, 4 Nov. 2022
  • The teetering car was eventually pulled back to safety using a crane.
    — Chris Foran, Journal Sentinel, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Take away the teetering conceptual pieces of the book and there’s little that’s distinctive about 3 Body Problem as a science fiction brand.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Mar. 2024
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teeter

2 of 2 noun
  • Now, in 2021, the Tokyo Olympics teeter on the brink once again.
    — Matt Alt, The New Yorker, 16 May 2021
  • The most stable place on a teeter-totter is in the middle.
    — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 12 Jan. 2021
  • Both have the same way of walking—a bit of a teeter, without much swinging of arms.
    — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 21 Apr. 2022
  • There were swings, a big yard, climbing bars and a teeter totter.
    — Judy Peterson, The Mercury News, 25 May 2017
  • That helps, of course, as his average teeters around the Mendoza Line.
    — Jeff Wilson, star-telegram, 23 May 2018
  • And many more teeter on the economic brink, experts say.
    — NBC News, 30 Nov. 2020
  • The girl teeters on the deck, as the bleach-blonde Latina who’s teaching her offers her arm for balance.
    — Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Pitchfork, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Others spin hula hoops, or leap through the air with a large teeter-totter.
    — Anne Nickoloff, cleveland.com, 7 May 2018
  • Midnight As the clock teeters between days, police receive the most calls.
    — Arcelia Martin, Dallas News, 15 June 2023
  • Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is teeter-tottering on the edge of a huge merger.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2017
  • That road teeters on the edge of crumbling 20 feet down into the lake, as waves crash into the dunes and carve out the road's foundation.
    — Sarah Bowman, Indianapolis Star, 24 Mar. 2020
  • The whole book feels like a teeter-totter between the author’s own hero worship of the subject and his gawking at the tragedy.
    — Jason Diamond, Bon Appétit, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Revered by the others, Mr. Green lays down the cleanest, clearest rhythms even as his large body teeters and lumbers.
    — Brian Seibert, New York Times, 6 July 2017
  • As offline sales teeter, the online world shows some promise.
    — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 28 Sep. 2022
  • Vince teeters on the edge of so many emotions in this song, which is an incredible feat.
    — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader, 5 Apr. 2018
  • Each room in the apartment teeters between safe haven and battleground.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Mar. 2023
  • The Vikings’ lead teeter-tottered around 20 points midway through the second half before the Panthers would cut in late.
    — Robert Fenbers, cleveland, 6 Feb. 2022
  • The Rao’s Spark Plug has one of the most impressive heads on top of the cocktail, with at least half an inch of foam that teeters on the edge of overflowing the coupe glass.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2023
  • The Tesla teeters between ending up on its roof or settling back on its wheels.
    — The Economist, 26 May 2018
  • Determined to save her family, Chris courts death in the darkest reaches of the ocean in a last-ditch effort as the plane teeters on the abyss.
    — Jordan Riefe, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2023
  • Zone Out's script, just like Sunspring's, teeters on the edge of inanity and emotion—which, honestly, puts it right up there with the best of the sci-fi canon.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 11 June 2018
  • Today, 68 years after the arrival of the vaccine, the disease teeters on the verge of disappearance.
    — Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Wolfenstein 2 teeters between dark and disturbing at one moment, then schlocky and B-movie the next.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 27 Oct. 2017
  • Those trying to change the field teeter between optimism and despair.
    — Usha Lee McFarling, STAT, 14 Dec. 2021
  • And the one-loss champion Buckeyes suddenly teeter on the edge of becoming the fourth-straight Big Ten champ to miss the playoff.
    — Doug Lesmerises, cleveland, 28 Nov. 2019
  • If the eastern brigades teeter, Kyiv might have no choice but to strip forces from the southern front in order to reinforce Donbas.
    — David Axe, Forbes, 15 June 2022
  • The moon also dampens the amount that Earth teeters on its axis, helping to keep our climate more stable.
    — National Geographic, 3 July 2019
  • The Mets had not lost a series all season, but that streak sailed when the Seattle Mariners closed out a teeter-totter affair Sunday.
    — New York Times, 15 May 2022
  • All the while, a humanitarian crisis teeters from bad to worse.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 22 Nov. 2023
  • Regional banks have been hit especially hard, and investors are still bracing for pain six weeks later as First Republic Bank teeters on the edge.
    — Allison Morrow, CNN, 28 Apr. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'teeter.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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