different between trot vs stagger

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /t??t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t??t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English trotten, from Old French trotter, troter (“to go, trot”), from Medieval Latin *trott?, *trot? (“to go”), from Frankish *trott?n (“to go, run”), from Proto-Germanic *trud?n?, *trudan?, *tradjan? (“to go, step, tread”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreh?- (“to run, escape”). Cognate with Old High German trott?n (“to run”), Modern German trotten (“to trot, plod”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (trudan, “to tread”), Old Norse troða (“to walk, tread”), Old English tredan (“to step, tread”). Doublet of tread.

Noun

trot (plural trots)

1. (archaic, derogatory) An ugly old woman, a hag. [From 1362.]
2. (chiefly of horses) A gait of a four-legged animal between walk and canter, a diagonal gait (in which diagonally opposite pairs of legs move together).
   • 2000, Margaret H. Bonham, Introduction to: Dog Agility, page 14,

     Dogs have a variety of gaits. Most dogs have the walk, trot, pace, and gallop.

   • 2008, Kenneth W. Hinchcliff, Andris J. Kaneps, Raymond J. Geor, Equine Exercise Physiology: The Science of Exercise in the Athletic Horse, Elsevier, page 154,

     The toelt is comfortable for the rider because the amplitude of the dorsoventral displacement is lower than at the trot. […] The slow trot is a two-beat symmetric diagonal gait. Among the normal variations of the trot of saddle horses, the speed of the gait increases from collected to extended trot.

   • 2009, Gordon Wright, George H. Morris, Learning To Ride, Hunt, And Show, page 65,

     To assume the correct position for the posting trot, first walk, with the body inclined forward in a posting position. Then put the horse into a slow or sitting trot at six miles an hour. Do not post.

3. A gait of a person or animal faster than a walk but slower than a run.
4. A brisk journey or progression.

   We often take the car and have a trot down to the beach.

   In this lesson we'll have a quick trot through Chapter 3 before moving on to Chapter 4.

5. A toddler. [From 1854.]
   • 1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes, 1869, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume V: The Newcomes, Volume I, page 123,

     […] but Ethel romped with the little children — the rosy little trots — and took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories.

6. (obsolete) A young animal. [From 1895.]
7. (dance) A moderately rapid dance.
8. (Australia, obsolete) A succession of heads thrown in a game of two-up.
9. (Australia, New Zealand, with "good" or "bad") A run of luck or fortune.

   He?s had a good trot, but his luck will end soon.

   • 1994, Noel Virtue, Sandspit Crossing, page 34,

     It was to be a hugely special occasion, for apart from the picture shows at the Majestic, there was usually nothing at all going on in Sandspit to make anyone think they were on a good trot living there.

   • 2004, John Mosig, Ric Fallu, Australian Fish Farmer: A Practical Guide to Aquaculture, 2nd Edition, page 21,

     Should he or she be having a bad trot, the exchange rate will be higher than normal.

10. (dated, slang, among students) Synonym of horse (illegitimate study aid)
11. (informal, as 'the trots') Diarrhoea.

    He's got a bad case of the trots and has to keep running off to the toilet.

Synonyms

• (gait of an animal between walk and canter):
• (ugly old woman): See Thesaurus:old woman
• (gait of a person faster than a walk): jog

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

trot (third-person singular simple present trots, present participle trotting, simple past and past participle trotted)

1. (intransitive) To move along briskly; specifically, to move at a pace between a walk and a run.

   I didn't want to miss my bus, so I trotted the last few hundred yards to the stop.

   The dog trotted along obediently by his master's side.

   • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xiv:

     I would trot ten or twelve miles each day, go into a cheap restaurant and eat my fill of bread, but would never be satisfied. During these wanderings I once hit on a vegetarian restaurant in Farringdon Street. The sight of it filled me with the same joy that a child feels on getting a thing after its own heart.

   • c. 1920s-1930s, Charlotte Druitt Cole, Runaway Jane:

     They sent little Jane to the garden to play,

     But she opened the gate, and then trotted away

     Under the hawthorns and down the green lane,

     Bad little, mad little, runaway Jane!

2. (intransitive, of a horse) To move at a gait between a walk and a canter.
3. (transitive) To cause to move, as a horse or other animal, in the pace called a trot; to cause to run without galloping or cantering.

Synonyms

• (to walk rapidly): jog, pace
  • See also Thesaurus:walk, Thesaurus:run

Derived terms

• hot to trot
• strong enough to trot a mouse on

Translations

Etymology 2

Short for foxtrot, whose rhythms influenced the genre.

Noun

trot (uncountable)

1. A genre of Korean pop music employing repetitive rhythm and vocal inflections.

Synonyms

• ppongjjak

Etymology 3

Noun

trot (plural trots)

1. (derogatory, properly Trot) Clipping of Trotskyist.

References

Anagrams

• -tort, ROTT, Rott, TRTO, tort

French

Etymology

From Old French trot, troter, from Medieval Latin trottare, of Germanic origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?o/

Noun

trot m (plural trots)

1. trot

Further reading

• “trot” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• tort

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English trotten, from Old French trotter, troter (“to go, trot”), from Medieval Latin *trott?, *trot? (“to go”), from Frankish *trott?n (“to go, run”), from Proto-Germanic *trud?n?, *trudan?, *tradjan? (“to go, step, tread”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreh?- (“to run, escape”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [tr?t], [trot]

Verb

trot (third-person singular present trots, present participle trottin, past trottit, past participle trottit)

1. to move at a quick steady pace
2. (of water) to flow rapidly and noisily, purl, ripple

Derived terms

• (Ulster) trottle-caur (“a low vehicle for moving hay”)

Noun

trot (plural trots)

1. a short, quick pace
2. the fall, angle, or run on a drain

Derived terms

• jeoparty trot (“a quick motion between running and walking”)
• job-trot (“a slow, monotonous or easy going pace, the settled routine or way of doing things”)
• short in the trot (“short-tempered”)

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *tr?t?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tró?t/

Noun

tr??t m anim

1. drone (male bee)

Inflection

Further reading

• “trot”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

Torres Strait Creole

Etymology

From English throat.

Noun

trot

1. throat

English

Etymology

From Middle English stageren, stakeren, from Old Norse stakra (“to push, stagger”). Cognate with dialectal Danish stagre.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?stæ??/?
• (US) IPA^(key): /?stæ??/
• Rhymes: -æ??(r)

Noun

stagger (plural staggers)

1. An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion
   • 7 October 2012, Paolo Bandini in The Guardian, Denver Broncos 21 New England Patriots 31 - as it happened

     Put down the rosary beads folks, I believe hell may just have frozen over. Peyton Manning drops back, sees nothing open and runs for a first down. If you can call that running. More like the stagger of a wounded rhino. Did the job, though

   • 1861, Ellen Wood, East Lynne Chapter 39

     Afy slowly gathered in the sense of the words. She gasped twice, as if her breath had gone, and then, with a stagger and a shiver, fell heavily to the ground.

   • 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Stave 2

     And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire; both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"—cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

2. (veterinary medicine) A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling

3. Bewilderment; perplexity.
4. The spacing out of various actions over time.
   • 19 April 2016, Rachel Roddy in The Guardian, Rachel Roddy’s Roman spring vegetable stew recipe

     I don’t include cured pork, although it is very nice, and rather than putting everything in the pan at once I prefer a stagger of ingredients, which ensures each one gets the right amount of time.

5. (motor racing) The difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners.
6. (aviation) The horizontal positioning of a biplane, triplane, or multiplane's wings in relation to one another.

Translations

Verb

stagger (third-person singular simple present staggers, present participle staggering, simple past and past participle staggered)

1. Sway unsteadily, reel, or totter.
   1. (intransitive) In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter.

      She began to stagger across the room.

      • Deep was the wound; he staggered with the blow.

   2. (transitive) To cause to reel or totter.

      The powerful blow of his opponent's fist staggered the boxer.
   3. (intransitive) To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
      • 1708, Joseph Addison, The Present State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation

        The enemy staggers.

2. Doubt, waver, be shocked.
   1. (intransitive) To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.

      • He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.

   2. (transitive) To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.

      He will stagger the committee when he presents his report.

      • 1640, James Howell, England's Teares for the present Warres

        whosoever will be curious to read the future story of this intricate war , if it be possible to compile a story of it , he will find himself much staggered.

      • 1796, Edmund Burke, a letter to a noble lord

        Grants to the house of Russell were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility.

3. (transitive) Have multiple groups doing the same thing in a uniform fashion, but starting at different, evenly-spaced, times or places (attested from 1856).
   1. To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
   2. To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next.

      We will stagger the starting positions for the race on the oval track.

   3. To schedule in intervals.

      We will stagger the run so the faster runners can go first, then the joggers.

Translations

See also

• bestagger
• staggeringly
• staggers

References

Anagrams

• gagster, gargets, taggers