oscillate
Americanverb (used without object)
-
oscillates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
oscillated,
past participle, past
-
oscillating
present participle
-
to swing or move to and fro, as a pendulum does.
-
to vary or vacillate between differing beliefs, opinions, conditions, etc..
He oscillates regularly between elation and despair.
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Physics. to have, produce, or generate oscillations.
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Mathematics. (of a function, sequence, etc.) to tend to no limit, including infinity.
The sequence 0, 1, 0, 1, … oscillates.
verb (used with object)
-
oscillates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
oscillated,
past participle, past
-
oscillating
present participle
verb
-
(intr) to move or swing from side to side regularly
-
(intr) to waver between opinions, courses of action, etc
-
physics to undergo or produce or cause to undergo or produce oscillation
Synonym Usage
See swing 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
oscillatesimple
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oscillatessimple
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have oscillatedperfect
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has oscillatedperfect
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am oscillatingprogressive
-
are oscillatingprogressive
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is oscillatingprogressive
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have been oscillatingperfect progressive
-
has been oscillatingperfect progressive
Past
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oscillatedsimple
-
had oscillatedperfect
-
was oscillatingprogressive
-
were oscillatingprogressive
-
had been oscillatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of oscillate
1720–30; < Latin oscillātus (past participle of oscillāre “to swing, ride on a swing”), equivalent to oscill(um) “a swing” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
On a hot day, you’ll be happy to have a fan that can oscillate, meaning it moves back and forth in a steady motion. The verb oscillate can be traced back to the Latin word oscillum, meaning "swing," so it makes sense that oscillate is used to describe an object like a fan or a pendulum that swings from side to side. The word also can be used to describe a different kind of motion — the wavering of someone who is going back and forth between conflicting beliefs or actions. If you’ve ever had trouble making up your mind about something, you probably know what it feels like to oscillate — back and forth from one decision and to another and then back again. And again. And again.
Vocabulary lists containing oscillate
Unit 1: Telling Details
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
What funds like his appreciate, Feng says, is momentum persistence, whereas market environments where prices are choppy or oscillate in a narrow range are not helpful.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
Because of these local variations, time crystals that form in separate areas would normally oscillate at slightly different frequencies.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 24, 2026
“People oscillate between euphoria, depression, anger and hatred,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The waves could have gotten the vessel to oscillate back and forth, Sharpe said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
It would oscillate through the earth and back, until eventually it settled down at the center.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
RSI, which oscillates between 10 and 100, tends to rise when prices rise.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 6, 2026
The narrative oscillates between a journalistic view of the band’s history and something of an insider’s account.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
At the core of the film is the undeniable chemistry between Pitt and Clooney, which oscillates between camaraderie and competition.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2024
But someone in L.A. could have felt the “S” wave, in which bedrock oscillates perpendicular to the direction of the propagation of the wave, according to Page.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2024
If the universe truly oscillates, still stranger questions arise.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Its overall light field oscillated in the same direction, even though it contained photons of different colors traveling along many different paths.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
Tech conglomerate SoftBank—a proxy for the AI trade—Advantest and Kioxia, to name a few, have oscillated sharply as market sentiment flits between euphoria over the technology’s long-term promise and pessimism over monetization and sky-high valuations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Culturally, hyper-machismo has oscillated from cool to lame to ironically cool and back again for decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
Even though the stock-bond correlation has oscillated widely over the years, this ratio has remained remarkably constant — as you can see from the chart above.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 30, 2026
He oscillated hourly between anguish and exhilaration, multiplying fantastically the grandeur of his victories and exaggerating tragically the seriousness of his defeats.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
While Johnson’s elasticity as a performer is a bit more contentious, I’ve always found her choices fascinating — oscillating between rom-coms, superhero films and arthouse horror with the bat of a mascara’d eye.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026
The Selic policy rate is 13.5% with inflation oscillating around 4.5%.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026
When did it become clear that a Kayla/Jimmy scene has its own oscillating frequency?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
The debate about AI and jobs has become exhausting and largely unproductive, oscillating between “AI will take all jobs” and “AI will create more jobs than it destroys.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
This theory, like Huygens’s theory of oscillating systems, grew out of a piece of practical work connected with astronomy.
From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin
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