Modern seesaws have springs for safer play.

A set of playground seesaws.

Makeshift seesaws are used for acrobatics.

A seesaw (also known as a teeter-totter) is a long, narrow board suspended in the middle so that, as one end goes up, the other goes down.

In a playground setting, the board is balanced in the exact center. A playground or play area is an area designed for Children to play, indoors or outdoors A person sits on each end and they take turns pushing their feet against the ground to lift their end into the air. Playground seesaws usually have handles for the riders to grip as they sit facing each other. A handle is a part of or attachment to an object that can be moved or used by hand One problem with the seesaw's design is that if a child allows himself/herself to hit the ground suddenly after jumping, or exits the seesaw at the bottom, the other child may fall and be injured. CHILD syndrome (or congenital hemidysplasia with ichthyosiform erythroderma and limb defects) is a genetic disorder For this reason, seesaws are often mounted above a soft surface such as foam or wood chips. The most general definition of foam is a substance that is formed by trapping many gas Bubbles in a Liquid or Solid. Wood is hard fibrous lignified structural tissue produced as secondary Xylem in the stems of Woody plants notably trees but also shrubs

Seesaws, and the eagerness of children to play with them, are sometimes used to aid in mechanical processes. For example, at the Gaviotas community in Colombia, a children's seesaw is connected to a water pump. Gaviotas is an Ecovillage located in the Llanos of the Colombian department of Vichada, at 4°33'17"N 70°54'55"W Colombia (kəˈlʌmbɪə officially the Republic of Colombia () is a country in northwestern South America. For information on Wikipedia project-related discussions see WikipediaVillage pump.

In the United States a SeeSaw is also called a "teeter-totter". However, most commonly a "teeter-totter" is a two-person swing on a swing set, on which two children sit facing each other and the teeter-totter swings back and forth in a pendulum motion. According to Peter Trudgill, a linguistics expert who can trace all his great great-grandparents to a small patch of eastern Norfolk, this term originates from the Norfolk language word tittermatorter. Professor Peter Trudgill (pronounced) (born 1943 in Norwich, England) is a Sociolinguist, Academic and Author. Norfolk (ˈnɔrfək is a low-lying county in East Anglia, England, United Kingdom. Norfolk (ˈnɔrfək is a low-lying county in East Anglia, England, United Kingdom. Both teeter-totter (from teeter, as in to teeter on the edge) and seesaw (from the verb saw) demonstrate the linguistic process called reduplication, where a word or syllable is doubled, often with a different vowel. Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated Reduplication is typical of words that indicate repeated activity, such as riding up and down on a seesaw. ^[1]

Regional Note: The outdoor toy usually called a seesaw has a number of regional names, New England having the greatest variety in the smallest area. History See also History of New England New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian -speaking Native Americans including the In southeast New England it can be referred to as a tilt or a tilting board. History See also History of New England New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian -speaking Native Americans including the Speakers in northeast Massachusetts have been known to call it a teedle board; in the Narragansett Bay area the term changes to dandle or dandle board. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts ( is a state located in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Narragansett Bay is a Bay and Estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound. These regional names are not very common, and have become antiquated. Children call it a seesaw more likely than not in Massachusetts. Teeter or teeterboard is used more generally in the northeast United States, while teeter-totter, probably the most common term after seesaw, is used across the inland northern states and westward to the West Coast. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[1]

For the mechanics of a seesaw, see lever. The simple mechanics of a seesaw make them appear frequently in school exam paper questions on mechanical problems.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} teeter-totter