FALTER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Falter

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/fˈɔltər/ Listen

verb

Falter v. t. To thrash in the chaff; also, to cleanse or sift, as barley. (Prov. Eng.)

Falter v. t. To utter with hesitation, or in a broken, trembling, or weak manner. "And here he faltered forth his last farewell." "Mde me most happy, faltering "I am thine.""

Falter v. i. (past & past part. faltered; pres. part. faltering)

To hesitate; to speak brokenly or weakly; to stammer; as, his tongue falters. "With faltering speech and visage incomposed."

To tremble; to totter; to be unsteady. "He found his legs falter."

To hesitate in purpose or action. "Ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms."

To fail in distinctness or regularity of exercise; said of the mind or of thought. "Here indeed the power of disinct conception of space and distance falters."

noun

Falter n. Hesitation; trembling; feebleness; an uncertain or broken sound; as, a slight falter in her voice. "The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe."

See images of 'Falter'

Etymology of 'Falter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Falter" Quotes from Famous Books

... [-them-] {him} to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, [-their-] {theirs} was the calmest and [-the-] ...

— Anthem • Ayn Rand

... seem to the eye of man, yet strong in the assurance that the hosts of heaven are encamped round about us, and that "more are they that are with us, than they that are" on the side of the oppressor; and let us not falter until in God's own good time the word shall be spoken, not as, we would hope, in the whirlwind or the earthquake, but in the "still small voice" of the oppressor's own conviction, saying to the slaves, ...

— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... places it was so sheer that Godwin must clutch the mane of Flame, and Masouda must cling close to Godwin's middle to save themselves from slipping off behind. Yet, notwithstanding the double weights they bore, those gallant steeds never seemed to falter or to tire. At one spot they plunged through a mountain stream. Godwin noted that not fifty yards to their right this stream fell over a little precipice cutting its way between cliffs which were full eighteen feet from bank to bank, and thought to himself ...

— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... all the rest of it? Suppose I, with nothing but such sentimental stuff to stand between these muscles of mine and those papers which you have about you, and which I want and mean to have: suppose I, with the prize within my grasp, were to falter and sneak away with my hands empty; or, what would be worse, cover up my weakness by playing the magnanimous hero, and sparing you the violence I dared not use, would you not despise me from the depths of your woman's ...

— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... ask the question Which my heart has asked before? Then I falter, "Can you love me, Darling?" I can ...

— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

More quotes...