a. Also wabbly. [f. WOBBLE v. + -Y1.] Inclined to wobble.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 149/1. The knees, which at first is weak and wabbly, gets strong.
1871. Daily News, 11 April, 6/3. A company, a regiment, or a brigade can fight as well if its line be slightly ‘wobbly’ as if it were dressed to death.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, I. 279. ‘Nancy!’ cries Bobby,… speaking in a wobbly, quivering voice.
1878. Athenæum, 13 July, 42/1. It [Lord William’s English] is decidedly ‘wobbly.’
Hence Wobbliness, the state of being wobbly.
1865. The Era, 5 Nov., 10/1. So now for a little quiet and the gradual dispersion of my sea wobbliness—the rolling and pitching and constant snatching at an equilibrium, the effect of which is almost as strong as it was on board of the steamship.
1880. Miss Broughton, Second Thoughts, I. ii. General Tarlton is observing with chill misgiving a certain threatening wobbliness in the gait of his [top].
1881. J. Morley, Recoll. (1917), I. 174. A ‘wobbliness’ which nobody is more conscious of or more disgusted by, than I am.
