means To move unsteadily from side to side with small, uncontrolled shifts, never quite settling into balance.

from An English word that surfaced around the 17th century, a frequentative of the older 'wabble' — itself likely echoing the Germanic family that also gave us 'wave' and the dialectal 'wabble/wapple' for swaying motion. The '-le' ending is the language's little machine for repetition: a 'wob' that keeps happening becomes a 'wobble,' the same trick that turns 'crack' into 'crackle' and 'wamp' into 'wamble.' In short, the word shakes because its very shape is built to repeat.