FLUCTUATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Fluctuate

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/flˈəktʃəwˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Fluctuate v. t. To cause to move as a wave; to put in motion. (R.) "And fluctuate all the still perfume."

Fluctuate v. i. (past & past part. fluctuated; pres. part. fluctuating)

To move as a wave; to roll hither and thither; to wave; to float backward and forward, as on waves; as, a fluctuating field of air.

To move now in one direction and now in another; to be wavering or unsteady; to be irresolute or undetermined; to vacillate.

Synonyms: To waver; vacillate; hesitate; scruple. To Fluctuate, Vacillate, Waver. Fluctuate is applied both to things and persons and denotes that they move as they are acted upon. The stocks fluctuate; a man fluctuates between conflicting influences. Vacillate and waver are applied to persons to represent them as acting themselves. A man vacillates when he goes backward and forward in his opinions and purposes, without any fixity of mind or principles. A man wavers when he shrinks back or hesitates at the approach of difficulty or danger. One who is fluctuating in his feelings is usually vacillating in resolve, and wavering in execution.

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Etymology of 'Fluctuate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fluctuate" Quotes from Famous Books

... loan the bank enough additional securities as collateral to cover the loan. Don't let it disturb you, Miss Carwell. It is merely a small detail of business that often crops up. Securities in these days so often fluctuate that banks are forced to call for more, and different ones, to cover loans secured by them. I'll attend to the ...

— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship ...

— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far as to say that the longer I abstained the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments, till the moment, the direful moment arrived when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such falling abroad as it were of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness and incipient bewilderment, that in the last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison I exclaimed in agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, "I am too poor ...

— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... "I'm not sure. Schools fluctuate, you know, and it seems they had scarlet fever about six months ago. That might account for a slight decrease in the ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... originally pulled the trigger may have been a series of pictures in the mind aroused by printed or spoken words. These pictures fade and are hard to keep steady; their contours and their pulse fluctuate. Gradually the process sets in of knowing what you feel without being entirely certain why you feel it. The fading pictures are displaced by other pictures, and then by names or symbols. But the emotion goes on, capable now of ...

— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

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