Dictionary

funambulatory en · ADJ

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) Performing in the manner of a tightrope walker.
   • 1728, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Volume 1, p. 107, under FUNAMBULUS, In the Floralia, or Ludi Florales, held under Galba, there were funambulatory Elephants, as we are inform’d by Suetonius.
   • Men walking the streets suddenly staggered as if drunk, and extended their arms involuntarily, as rope-dancers do. One of them said that after this funambulatory experience he was downright seasick and hadn’t felt well since. 1921, Philip Sanford Marden, chapter 8, in Sailing South, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pages 106–107:
   • 1868, Review of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise, translated by Ellen Frothingham, North American Review, Volume 106, Number 219, April 1868, p. 705, At a time when Gottsched and his compeers seemed hopelessly infected with Gallomania, and the temple of the Muses had degenerated into a funambulatory platform, on which unwieldy Teutons […] were emulating agile Frenchmen in dancing on the tight-rope of pseudo-classicism, Lessing appeared, and with a dramaturgical scourge of small cords drove the mimes from the stage, shifted the scene, and inaugurated a new era for German art and culture.
2. (not-comparable) Narrow, like a tightrope.
   • Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulatory track and narrow path of goodness […] 1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 7:
3. (not-comparable) Pertaining to tightrope walking