trembling

1. 1.

   vibrating slightly and irregularly; as e.g. with fear or cold or like the leaves of an aspen in a breeze

   “a quaking bog”

   “the quaking child asked for more”

   “quivering leaves of a poplar tree”

   “with shaking knees”

   “seemed shaky on her feet”

   “sparkling light from the shivering crystals of the chandelier”

   “trembling hands”

   Synonymsshakyshivering

   Similarunsteady

Other forms of trembling

plural

tremblings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about trembling

What does trembling mean?

trembling means "a shaky motion". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in trembling?

trembling has 3 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈtɹɛmbəlɪŋ/.

What is another word for trembling?

Close synonyms include shaking, shakiness, quiver, quivering, vibration. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is trembling a common word?

trembling is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.