see·saw

[see-saw]
noun
1.
a recreation in which two children alternately ride up and down while seated at opposite ends of a plank balanced at the middle.
2.
a plank or apparatus for this recreation.
3.
an up-and-down or a back-and-forth movement or procedure.
4.
Whist. a crossruff.
adjective
5.
moving up and down, back and forth, or alternately ahead and behind: It was a seesaw game with the lead changing hands many times.
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verb (used without object)
6.
to move in a seesaw manner: The boat seesawed in the heavy sea.
7.
to ride or play on a seesaw.
8.
to keep changing one's decision, opinion, or attitude; vacillate.
verb (used with object)
9.
to cause to move in a seesaw manner.
Origin:
1630–40 as part of a jingle accompanying a children's game; gradational compound based on saw1

Regional variation note
Although seesaw (def. 2) is the most widely used term in the U.S., teetertotter is also in wide use in the Northern, North Midland, and Western regions. Tilting board and its variants tilt board and tiltering board are New Eng. terms, especially Eastern New Eng., while tinter and its variant teenter are associated with Western New Eng.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To seesaw
Collins
World English Dictionary
seesaw (ˈsiːˌsɔː) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
—n
1.  a plank balanced in the middle so that two people seated on the ends can ride up and down by pushing on the ground with their feet
2.  the pastime of riding up and down on a seesaw
3.  a.  an up-and-down or back-and-forth movement
 b.  (as modifier): a seesaw movement
 
—vb
4.  (intr) to move up and down or back and forth in such a manner; oscillate
 
[C17: reduplication of saw1, alluding to the movement from side to side, as in sawing]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

seesaw
1640, in see-saw-sacke a downe, words in a rhythmic jingle used by children and repetitive motion workers, probably imitative of the rhythmic back-and-forth motion of sawyers working a two-man saw over wood or stone (see saw). Ref. to a game of going up and down on a balanced
plank is recorded from 1704; fig. sense is from 1714. Applied from 1824 to the plank arranged for the game. The verb is from 1712.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary

SEESAW definition

language
An early system on the IBM 701.
[Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)].
(1994-12-15)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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Example sentences
The seesaw is made from wooden planks and cinder blocks.
Balanced with the earners on one side of the seesaw, and the layabouts on the
  other.
Spilling over with humor, vulnerability and feistiness, his performance almost
  succeeds in balancing the stylistic seesaw.
As the load is added to the seesaw, the moment is increased on the right side.
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