Crossword clues for oscillate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Oscillate \Os"cil*late\ ([o^]s"s[i^]l*l[=a]t), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Oscillated ([o^]s"s[i^]l*l[=a]`t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Oscillating ([o^]s"s[i^]l*l[=a]`t[i^]ng).] [L. oscillare to swing, fr. oscillum a swing, a little mask or puppet made to be hung from trees and swing in the wind, prob. orig., a little mouth, a dim. from os mouth. See Oral, and cf. Osculate.]
To move backward and forward; to vibrate like a pendulum; to swing; to sway.
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To vary or fluctuate between fixed limits; to act or move in a fickle or fluctuating manner; to change repeatedly, back and forth.
The amount of superior families oscillates rather than changes, that is, it fluctuates within fixed limits.
--De Quincey.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1726, back-formation from oscillation, or else from Latin oscillatus, past participle of oscillare (see oscillation). From 1917 in electronics. Related: Oscillated; oscillating.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To swing back and forth, especially if with a regular rhythm. 2 (context intransitive English) To vacillate between conflicting opinions, etc. 3 (context intransitive English) To vary above and below a mean value.
WordNet
Usage examples of "oscillate".
At the point of the initial big bang, cosmologists speculated, every particle in the universe had undergone singular forces so intense that it had oscillated in time.
His alarm consoles flashed as the Caridans attempted to lock on to the Sun Crusher with a tractor beam, but Kyp worked the controls with Jedi-enhanced speed, oscillating his orbit at random so they could never get a positive lock.
One on her left was alive with drifting pyramids and rhombohedrons of oscillating, lambent energy, each a different color.
When Sapling threw the spear, it hissed through the air, oscillating slightly.
The boat oscillates gently on the waves with its cargo of lights, bodies dressed up for a festival, slices of water-melon, bottles of aniseed water.
Hence, according to the selection effected among concepts, and the relative weight which is attributed to them, we get the antinomies between which a philosophy of analysis must for ever remain oscillating and torn in sunder.
When he mixed citric acid and bromate ions in a solution of sulfuric acid in the presence of a cerium catalyst, he observed to his astonishment that the mixture became yellow, then faded to colorlessness after about a minute, then returned to yellow a minute later, then became colorless again, and continued to oscillate dozens of times before finally reaching equilibrium after about an hour.
As cotyledons and leaves are continually oscillating up and down, and yet retain all day long their proper position with their upper surfaces directed transversely to the light, and if displaced reassume this position, diaheliotropism must be considered as a modified form of circumnutation.
He swam then, kicking hard and fast, zigzagging through the oscillating cameras, until he reached the sternmost section of the hull.
Zack now stood before the right-hand woman, knees together, legs slightly bent, his hips oscillating rhythmically.
Then, because of the alternating-current Josephson effect, a supercurrent starts to oscillate back and forth between the superconductors.
Onward again by trains which threaded the awful snow solitude and lone peaks of the Rocky Mountains, through great cities which had been waving forest solitudes but yesterday, over prairie-oceans where the far horizon showed nor hill nor tree--naught but endless flower-strewn plains, as league after league stretched beneath the tireless swift-speeding iron steed, over billowy waving seas of giant grasses and lavish herbage products of the boundless generosity of nature in the far west, over tressel bridges which trembled and vibrated as the long train wound its oscillating way across shuddering abysses.
His motive most likely would have to be traced to one of those impulses so close to the electrochemical essence of things that microwires in bundles would have to be sunk into the skull and the basis for his action reduced to an investigation of neural events, or oscillating shapes on graph paper.
Some other persons perform wonderful feats of a similar nature on an oscillating trapeze, and many similar performances have been witnessed by the spectators of our large circuses.
Though she could hardly have known me from Adam, when I put finger to lips requesting silence, she winked at me and began to oscillate her hips, which action I know now was directed at Donaldson, who had been watching her from the inspection port above Selby.