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.
Oscillating \Os"cil*la`ting\ ([o^]s"s[i^]l*l[=a]`t[i^]ng), a. That oscillates; vibrating; swinging.
Wiktionary
move in a repeated back-and-forth motion. v
(present participle of oscillate English)
WordNet
adj. having periodic vibrations [syn: oscillatory]
Usage examples of "oscillating".
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.
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.
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.
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.
The bullocks were in danger of losing their footing, and dragging with them the oscillating vehicle.
The Legion had had a Cohort of light tanks, Cheetahs with 75mm guns in oscillating turrets.
Thus the forenoon passed, while the people, their bulk growing hourly vaster, kept to the streets, moving slowly backward and forward, oscillating in the grooves of the thoroughfares, the steady, low-pitched growl rising continually into the hot, still air.
The rolling oscillating globe dips it for an aeon in growing sea, lifts it from the sinking waters of its thousand year bath to the furnace of the sun, remodels and remoulds, turns ashes into flowers, and divides mephitis into diamonds and breath.
One on her left was alive with drifting pyramids and rhombohedrons of oscillating, lambent energy, each a different color.