Dictionary Definition
Verb
1 walk as if unable to control one's movements;
"The drunken man staggered into the room" [syn: reel, keel, lurch, swag, careen]
2 walk with great difficulty; "He staggered along
in the heavy snow" [syn: flounder]
3 to arrange in a systematic order; "stagger the
chairs in the lecture hall" [syn: distribute]
4 astound or overwhelm, as with shock; "She was
staggered with bills after she tried to rebuild her house following
the earthquake"
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -æɡə(r)
Noun
- An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing, as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion; vertigo; -- often in the plural; as, the stagger of a drunken man.
- A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling; as, parasitic staggers; apoplectic or sleepy staggers.
- Bewilderment; perplexity.
Translations
an unsteady movement of the body in walking or
standing
- Finnish: hoipertelu
a disease of horses and other animals
bewilderment; perplexity
Verb
- To move to one side and the other, as if about to fall, in standing or walking; not to stand or walk with steadiness; to sway; to reel or totter.
- To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
- To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.
- To cause to reel or totter.
- To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.
- To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
- To walk in an awkward, drunken fashion
Translations
to move to one side and the other, as if about
to fall, in standing or walking
- Finnish: hoiperrella, horjua
- Portuguese: cambalear
to walk in an awkward, drunken fashion
- Italian: barcollare
- Portuguese: cambalear
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
affright, agitate, alarm, alternate, amaze, amble, amplitude, arrhythmia, astonish, astound, awe, awestrike, back and fill,
barge, be drunk, be
incredible, be intoxicated, be unbelievable, bedaze, bedazzle, bewilder, blunder, boggle, bowl along, bowl down,
bowl over, brokenness, bundle, burden, camber, capriciousness, capsize, careen, career, choppiness, clump, come a cropper, confound, crack, crankle, curdle the blood,
daze, dazzle, desultoriness, devastate, discombobulate, discompose, disconcert, disconnectedness,
discontinuity,
disquiet, disturb, dither, do, drag, droop, dumbfound, dumbfounder, ebb and flow,
eccentricity,
electrify, erraticness, fall, fall down, fall flat, fall
headlong, fall over, fall prostrate, falter, fare, fibrillation, fill with
doubt, fitfulness,
fits and starts, flabbergast, flight path,
floor, flounce, flounder, fluctuate, fluctuation, flummox, flurry, fluster, flutter, foot, footslog, fright, frighten, funk, fuss, gait, gallop, get, get a cropper, go, go through phases, halt, have two minds, hippety-hop,
hitch, hobble, hop, horripilate, inconstancy, intermittence, irregularity, jar, jerkiness, jog, jolt, jump, knock over, labor, limp, list, lock step, lumber, lunge, lurch, make one tremble, mince, mincing steps, muddle
through, nonplus,
nonuniformity,
oscillate, overcome, overpower, overwhelm, pace, paddle, paralyze, pass belief, pass
out, patchiness,
peg, pendulate, perplex, perturb, petrify, piaffe, piaffer, pitch, pitch and plunge, plod, plunge, pop, prance, puzzle, rack, raise apprehensions, rattle, rearrange, reel, ring the changes, rock, roll, roughness, ruffle, sashay, saunter, scare, scuff, scuffle, scuttle, see double, seesaw, seethe, shake, shake up, shamble, shatter, shift, shilly-shally, shock, shot, shuffle, sidle, single-foot, skin effect,
skin friction, skip,
slap, slink, slip, slither, slog, slouch, slowness, space out, spasticity, spook, sporadicity, sporadicness, spottiness, sprawl, spread-eagle, stab, stalk, stammer, stamp, startle, step, stir, stiver, stomp, straddle, straggle, stride, strike dead, strike dumb,
strike with wonder, stroll, strolling gait, struggle, strut, stumble, stump, stun, stupefy, surprise, swagger, sway, swing, take a fall, take a flop,
take a header, take a pratfall, take a spill, take aback, tax, teeter, teeter-totter, thrash
about, tilt, tittup, toddle, topple, topple down, topple over,
toss, toss and tumble, toss
and turn, totter,
traipse, tread, trip, trot, trouble, trudge, try, tumble, turn, turn turtle, uncertainty, unevenness, unman, unmethodicalness,
unnerve, unpredictability,
unsettle, unsteadiness, unstring, unsystematicness,
upset, vacillate, variability, vary, velocity, volutation, waddle, walk, wallop, wallow, wamble, waver, wax and wane, weave, welter, whack, wheel, whiffle, whimsicality, whirl, wiggle, wobble, zag, zig, zigzag