Other forms: seesaws, seesawed, seesawing
A seesaw is the playground plank where one child rises as the other sinks. Ride the seesaw, on the seesaw, a wooden seesaw.
It works only if the two riders are roughly matched in weight, which is a physics lesson nobody plans to give. The American word is teeter-totter. As a verb, to seesaw means to move back and forth between two states: the lead seesawed, prices seesawed. Note that the word is a reduplication imitating the rhythm, like flip-flop and zigzag, and probably older than the plank.
1nounseesawA playground plank where one rider rises as the other sinks.
“The two children went up and down on the seesaw, laughing.”
2verbmoveTo move back and forth between two states.
“His mood seesawed between hope and despair as he waited for the results.”
seesaw is a pivoting plank.
Also accepted in games: teeter-totter
The word is a reduplication imitating rhythmic back-and-forth motion, probably from a sawyers' chant, and influenced by the verbs see and saw. Teeter-totter, flip-flop and zigzag are built the same way.
Probably a frequentative imitative of the sound of rhythmic back-and-forth, up-and-down or zigzagging motion, such as teeter-totter, zigzag, flip-flop, ping pong, etc., under the umbrella term of reduplication; also likely influenced by the verbs see and saw of either present or past tense.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sports & Fitness, Games & Toys