ppl. a. [f. FALTER v.1 + -ING2.]
1. That falters; in senses of the vb. a. of a person, the limbs, etc.
1549. Coverdale, Erasm. Par. Heb., xii. 12. Folowe you stout wrastelers, and lustye runners: bestyre youre werye handes, plucke vp your weake and foltryng knees, and runne streygth to the marke that is set before you.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 846.
| Yet, oft his [Adam’s] heart, divine of something ill, | |
| Misgave him; hee the faultring measure felt. |
1744. Akenside, Pleas. Imag., III. 209.
| Now a dastard-kind | |
| Advance reluctant, and with fault’ring feet | |
| Shrink from the gazer’s eye. |
1820. Keats, Eve St. Agnes, xxii.
| Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade, | |
| Old Angela was feeling for the stair, | |
| When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid, | |
| Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware. |
1884. J. Colborne, Hicks Pasha, 178. Leaving his scabbard and revolver, on which the horse had fallen, and with his naked sword in hand, the poor fellow then staggered on with faltering step, stumbling and falling over bush and stump.
b. of the voice, tongue, accent. Also of a person speaking, a breeze.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. xi. 12.
| Swelling throbs empeach | |
| His foltering tongue with pangs of drerinesse. |
1642. Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus (1851), 253. Silence, and Sufferance, and speaking deeds against falstering words.
1741. C. Middleton, Cicero, I. iv. 318. In broken, faultering accents he foretold the storm, which was ready to break, both upon Cicero and the Republic.
1773. Goldsm., Stoops to Conq., V. The faultering gentleman, with looks on the ground.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., II. xiv.
| Beware!—But hark, what sounds are these? | |
| My dull ears catch no faltering breeze. |
1878. A Masque of Poets, 80, Forgiven.
| We heard the small, sweet voices of the night | |
| Begin in faltering music to awake. |
2. quasi-adv. = FALTERINGLY.
a. 1741. Chalkley, Wks. (1749), 191. His Head, when last lifted up, he spoke very low and faultering, yet so as I could understand, and said, Now I am a going, and about an Hour after, laying all the while without Sigh or Groan, departed this Life as in a Slumber in sweet Peace.
