The word 'quaver' is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used as a noun or a verb. As a noun, 'quaver' means a musical note that is played or sung for a shorter duration than a regular note. It can also refer to a trembling or shaking in one's voice. Example as a noun: The soprano's voice wavered slightly on the final quaver of the aria. As a verb, 'quaver' means to shake or tremble in one's voice while speaking or singing. Example as a verb: The nervous contestant's voice began to quaver as she answered the final question.
His soft, slow plainsman's drawl held just the slightest quaver of emotion.
In particular, the lyrics to the title song " I Can't Sing" – sung at this week's launch by Cynthia Erivo – have plenty of Hill's trademark wit: "Open my throat and windows start to crack / I thought a quaver was a cheese-based snack".
"It was Christmas Eve, I was nine years old," she says, a quaver in her voice, as she remembers how she and her mom waited in vain for Dad to come home from work.
When the phonograph needle gets stuck, the soprano's voice keeps repeating the same word on the same quaver, which suddenly assumes a grotesquely independent life.
Sleater-Kinney disbanded in 2006, but the singer Corin Tucker is still around, and she brings her intense quaver to her solo début, "1,000 Years" (Kill Rock Stars, Oct. 5).
Listen to "What Other Guy": Wesley Keith, the front man for the Lumineers, a roots-revival act out of Denver, sings in a reaching tenor, and his plaintive quaver is supported by Neyla Pekarek, on cello, piano, and mandolin, and Jerimiah Fraites, on percussion.
Apple had lost the stagy quaver in her voice and had become adept at wringing more than just fear and anger from her favorite trope: a relationship with a man that goes terribly wrong.
Yet Abercrombie puts a little quaver in the voice and a little angularity in the gestures which persuasively and movingly suggest the subtlest and deepest deteriorations of age.
But I'm hugging her leg now, my face pressed against her hip, and, as much as I'm afraid for myself, I'm confused, too, and frightened for her, for tears are distorting her eyes, and she's saying, in a voice that I will hear always for its quaver of defiance and forfeit, how difficult everything is, how wrong and difficult.
Her voice, in her own house, had become almost slangy, shedding its quaver.
"My happiest moment," a man who was missing a front tooth was saying, with a practiced homiletic quaver, into the microphone, "was when I saw myself a sinner.
