quivering

Etymology

adj

1. shaking, shivering
   The quivering mass of jello rocked back and forth incessantly but remained on the plate.
   You envied me in all my great successes — Jerusalem, Lazarus, Mock Election, pupils, drawings, lectures ; and at all times tried to prove they were not successes, with a pale face and quivering lip — more pale and more quivering than usual. 1853, Benjamin Robert Haydon, edited by Tom Taylor, The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon

verb

1. present participle and gerund of quiver

noun

1. A motion by which something quivers or trembles.
   quiverings of the eyelid
   The quiverings of incipient harmony were hushed, and the divine sat in speechless and almost terrified astonishment, while she undid the door, and stood up in the sacred desk from which his maledictions had just been thundered. 1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Gentle Boy”, in Twice-Told Tales
   And now the lion lunged suddenly to earth and with a few spasmodic quiverings lay still. 1921, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan the Terrible
   There remained only the quiverings—the windows, the steel springs of the bed, the dishes, a chair touching the wall. There came at last a silence so complete she could hear the ticking of the clock under the bed, and the snoring of Sophronie's children behind the wall of the girls' bedroom. 1954, Harriette Simpson Arnow, The Dollmaker