Staggered

How to spell staggered

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce staggered

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does staggered mean?

1. verbMoved or walked unsteadily, as if about to fall over.
2. verbDeeply shocked or astonished someone, as though knocking them off balance.
3. adjectiveArranged at alternating or overlapping intervals rather than in a single straight line or at the same time.

Staggered in a sentence

• verb

  He staggered across the room after the long night shift.

• verb

  The size of the final bill completely staggered the new homeowners.

• adjective

  The office introduced staggered start times to ease the morning commute.

• verb

  The exhausted runner staggered over the finish line.

• verb

  The scale of the data breach staggered the investigators.

• adjective

  The tiles were laid in a staggered pattern so the joints never lined up.

Where does staggered come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base verb 'stagger' descends from the Old Norse word 'stakra', meaning to push, totter, or reel; this was a frequentative form of 'staka', meaning to push or shove. Old Norse speakers settling in England in the medieval period helped carry the word into English, where it first appeared (around the 1400s, in the older spelling 'stacker') describing the unsteady, lurching way a person walks when dizzy, drunk, or struck a heavy blow. From that physical sense the meaning broadened: by extension a person could be 'staggered' figuratively, that is overwhelmed or astonished, as though knocked off balance by surprising news. A separate, more technical sense developed later, in which things are 'staggered' meaning set at alternating or overlapping intervals rather than in a straight line. The spelling trap lives in the doubled 'g', which is required because the stressed short vowel needs a double consonant before the '-er' and '-ed' endings.

How the word is built

• stagger (to totter, from Old Norse stakra)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)