the.com/waddle
Walking like your legs are mad at each other but still love you.
means To walk with short steps and a side-to-side rocking motion, often because you're low to the ground, heavy, or short-legged.
from Waddle emerged in the 1500s as a frequentative form of 'wade' — that is, 'wade' plus the '-le' suffix that English likes to tack onto verbs to mean 'do it repeatedly, in little bits' (think 'wrestle' from 'wrest,' or 'sparkle' from 'spark'). So a waddle is etymologically a bunch of tiny, repeated wades — which tracks, since wading through water or mud forces exactly that rocking, unsteady gait.
- penguin signature
- short legs force side to side rocking
- energy cost
- actually more efficient than it looks
- etymology
- from wade, first recorded 1690s
- also means
- a group of penguins on land