Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fluctuate   /flˈəktʃəwˌeɪt/   Listen
Fluctuate

verb
(past & past part. fluctuated; pres. part. fluctuating)
1.
Cause to fluctuate or move in a wavelike pattern.
2.
Move or sway in a rising and falling or wavelike pattern.  Synonyms: vacillate, waver.
3.
Be unstable.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Fluctuate" Quotes from Famous Books



... stigmatized by public opinion, and creates no permanent inequality between the servant and the master. But whilst the transition from one social condition to another is going on, there is almost always a time when men's minds fluctuate between the aristocratic notion of subjection and the democratic notion of obedience. Obedience then loses its moral importance in the eyes of him who obeys; he no longer considers it as a species of divine obligation, and he does not yet view it under its purely human aspect; it has to him no character ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... occurred to me that a third method can be used to solve this important problem. My plan is this: It is well known that many variable stars, such as Algol, [sigma] Librae, U Coronae, and the remarkable variable D.M. 1.3408 deg., discovered by Mr. E.F. Sawyer, fluctuate at regular intervals. Now, I believe it is possible to determine very accurately the intervals between these changes, and, by noting the change of time in these intervals, when the earth is in different points of its orbit, we get the time light requires to cross that orbit. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... of Europe, not only does the pronunciation of language maintain its inherent dialectic variety, and fluctuate through the prevalence of provincial speakers, but the whole body of a language changes, while yet the spelling, once adopted in public documents, and taught to children, remains for a long time the same. In early times, when literature was in its infancy, when copies ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... much, if it can be called comfort to have one's uncertainty fluctuate to the better side. You make me hope that the Spaniards design on Lombardy ; my passion for Tuscany, and anxiety for you, make me eager to believe it; but alas! while I am in the belief of this, they may be in the act of conquest in Florence, and poor you retiring politically! How delightful ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... swelling in two parts, separated by a resonant area, was noted to the left of the umbilicus and in the left iliac fossa. The abdomen moved fairly, and there was little tenderness over the swelling. During the next week the swelling appeared to increase and to fluctuate; at the same time the temperature again began to rise to 100 deg. and 101 deg. at eve. The swelling was taken to be a localised peritoneal suppuration, and an incision was made over it; but this led down to a free peritoneal cavity, with a tumour pressing up ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... the people? The question presents a false and delusive view. We are all the people. We are, and as long as we enjoy our freedom, we shall be divided into parties. The true question is, shall the judiciary be permanent, or fluctuate with the tide of public opinion? I beg, I implore gentlemen to consider the magnitude and value of the principle which they are about to annihilate. If your judges are independent of political changes, they may have their preferences, but they will ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... pass from the one attitude to the other. But it is impossible to say that the one attitude is the other. It is correct to say that the one attitude may follow the other. But it is to be misled by language to say that the one attitude becomes the other. It is possible for one and the same man to fluctuate between the two attitudes, to alternate between them—possible, though inconsistent. The child, or even that larger child, the man, may beg and scold, almost in the same breath. The savage, as is well known, ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... I fluctuate between the peril of sensuous pleasure and the proof of wholesomeness, and am more inclined (though I would not offer an irrevocable judgement) to approve of the use of singing in the Church, that, by the pleasure of the ear, weaker minds ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges

... 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 ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann



Words linked to "Fluctuate" :   vacillate, turn, move, change state, displace, swing, fluctuation



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com