from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- intransitive v. To shake or tremble, as from old age; totter.
- intransitive v. To progress in a feeble, unsteady manner.
- n. Any of various leafless, annual parasitic herbs of the genus Cuscuta that lack chlorophyll and have slender, twining, yellow or reddish stems and small whitish flowers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To shake or tremble as one moves, especially as of old age or childhood; to totter.
- n. Any of about 100-170 species of yellow, orange or red (rarely green) parasitic plants of the genus Cuscuta. Formerly treated as the only genus in the family Cuscutaceae, recent genetic research by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has shown that it is correctly placed in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A plant of the genus Cuscuta. It is a leafless parasitical vine with yellowish threadlike stems. It attaches itself to some other plant, as to flax, goldenrod, etc., and decaying at the root, is nourished by the plant that supports it.
- v. To shake, tremble, or totter.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The common name of plants of the genus Cuscuta, a group of very slender, branched, twining, leafless, yellowish or reddish annual parasites, belonging to the natural order Convolvulaceæ.
- To shake; tremble.
- n. The various dodders are named, for the most part, from their principal host or from some leading character, and the specific names are usually translations of vernacular ones or vice versa. See the following phrases.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. walk unsteadily
- n. a leafless annual parasitic vine of the genus Cuscuta having whitish or yellow filamentous stems; obtain nourishment through haustoria
Alteration of Middle English daderen.
Middle English doder, possibly from Middle Dutch, yolk of an egg (from the yellow color of the blossom of one species of this plant).(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Middle English daderen ("to quake, tremble") (Wiktionary)