Crossword Dictionary
TREMBLE
tremble - v
move or jerk quickly and involuntarily up and down or sideways; "His hands were trembling when he signed the document"
Synonyms
flutter, quiver, shiver, shudder, throb, wobble, jar, jitter, oscillate, palpitate, quake, quaver, rock, teeter, totter, tremor
Examples
It still rained, but it wasn't cold that made her hands tremble as she left the car.
I tried with all my might to control the eagerness that made me tremble so that I could hardly walk.
He was not going very fast, but on his flanks specks of foam began to appear and at times he would tremble like a leaf.
Etymology
c. 1300, "shake from fear, cold, etc.," from Old French trembler "tremble, fear" (11c.), from Vulgar Latin *tremulare (source also of Italian tremolare, Spanish temblar), from Latin tremulus "trembling, shaking, quaking," from tremere "to tremble, shiver, quake," from PIE *trem- "to tremble" (source also of Greek tremein "to shiver, tremble, to quake, to fear," Lithuanian tremiu, tremti "to chase away," Old Church Slavonic treso "to shake," Gothic þramstei "grasshopper"). A native word for this was Old English bifian. Related: Trembled; trembling. The noun is recorded from c. 1600.