Chiefly Sc. Also 9 staiver. [? Alteration of STAGGER v., after daver.] intr. a. To stagger (lit. and fig.). b. To wander about aimlessly or in a restless manner.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., III. v. 797 (Cott.). Þus in seige a sote to se,… Sal ger standande statis stauer. Ibid., IV. vii. 816. Al þus in wodnes as thai waueryde And stekyt sa withe stokys staweride [v.r. stauerit].
1755. R. Forbes, Ajax’ Sp., Jrnl. fr. Lond. to Portsmouth, 30. I was lyin tawin an’ wamlin … like … a stirkie that had staver’d into a well-eye. Ibid., 50. Key, Staver’d [=] Stagger’d.
1776. C. Keith, Farmer’s Ha’, xxxii. [The ganger] gangs just stavering about In quest o’ prey.
1820. Blackw. Mag., Nov., 203. So out I stavers, for rest I could na’ within.
1864. Latto, Tam. Bodkin, xix. (1894), 199. I staivered awa in, an’ tauld my story.
1884. Froude, Carlyle’s Life in Lond., I. iii. 69. He slept badly from overwork, ‘gaeing stavering aboot the hoose at night,’ as the Scorch maid said, restless alike in mind and body.
