quaver

Throughout the history of American music, blues, jazz and soul singers have used the jazzy quaver for the subtlest nuances of emotion: for tension, playfulness, defiance, flirtatiousness, ache or just blithe ornamentation.

Voice quavering, I told Sam that I was looking for an actual relationship, one that could go somewhere.

“Keep up the fight,” he told the audience in a quavering voice.

Dressed in a traditional feathered cloak, her voice quavered as she thrust a photo of her mother at the committee.

A caller who did not identify himself pleaded in a quavering voice for the council to oppose the ban.