Synonyms

vibrate

American

[vahy-brayt] / ˈvaɪ breɪt /

verb (used without object)

to move rhythmically and steadily to and fro, as a pendulum; oscillate.
to move to and fro or up and down quickly and repeatedly; quiver; tremble.
(of sounds) to produce or have a quivering or vibratory effect; resound.

Synonyms:

echo
to thrill, as in emotional response.
to move between alternatives or extremes; fluctuate; vacillate.

verb (used with object)

to cause to move rhythmically and steadily to and fro, swing, or oscillate.
to cause to move to and fro or up and down quickly and repeatedly; cause to quiver or tremble.
to give forth or emit by, or as by, vibration.
to measure or indicate by vibration or oscillation.

a pendulum vibrating seconds.

vibrate British

/ vaɪˈbreɪt /

verb

to move or cause to move back and forth rapidly; shake, quiver, or throb
(intr) to oscillate
to send out (a sound) by vibration; resonate or cause to resonate
(intr) to waver
physics to undergo or cause to undergo an oscillatory or periodic process, as of an alternating current; oscillate
rare (intr) to respond emotionally; thrill

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Synonym Usage

See shake.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of vibrate

First recorded in 1610–20; from Latin vibrātus (past participle of vibrāre “to move to and fro”); see -ate ¹

Explanation

When you feel something vibrate, it trembles and shakes. A mild earthquake, for example, might make your chandelier vibrate. A hummingbird's wings vibrate, and so does an electric toothbrush. That extremely rapid back-and-forth movement is what happens when something vibrates. Something can also vibrate in a more musical, resonant way — the sound of an organ might vibrate through a church, for example. The root is the Latin word vibratus, which means "move quickly to and fro or shake."

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Vocabulary lists containing vibrate

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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:

vibrate vibrates vibrated vibrating

Acting somewhat like a microscopic tuning fork, the resonator can vibrate for two milliseconds.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026

“Nothing beats feeling the ground vibrate, seeing the charting of the wheels and hearing the whistle,” he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

These new songs, they vibrate very highly for me and I’m excited about experiencing and expressing that.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026

Rare earths are likewise found in every smartphone, enhancing screen performance and enabling the phone to vibrate.

From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026

This beautiful noise seeps inside my system and makes it vibrate in a way that is different from ever before.

From "A Rover's Story" by Jasmine Warga

Some fans do just that, but the packed stadium vibrates harder with cheers as thousands of phones stay in the air.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

"What happens in any part of this ocean vibrates through all of us," she told AFP.

From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026

Nevertheless, Bonnie’s doting parents hope that Lilypad will help Bonnie make friends, oblivious to how the gizmo — and soon, their daughter — vibrates with anxiety.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026

Even if you never bore witness to that outrageous performance, its elemental alchemy vibrates in the band’s most popular songs, each of them calling to us with purpose.

From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2026

My phone vibrates again, probably either Chris asking for forgiveness or Kenya asking for backup against Denasia.

From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas

Inside the machine, which looked like a large blender with a metal doughnut inside, blue and orange lights vibrated within glass tubes, while feathery electricity danced out the top.

From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026

They also approached the spiders with a tuning fork that vibrated at the same frequency as the insects’ beating wings.

From Science Magazine ● Dec. 4, 2024

About an hour after the first message, phones again vibrated with a new alert from the Home Front Command, telling people they could leave shelters and protected areas.

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2024

“It just hit me here in my visceral and vibrated through me and that was it,” recalls Creed Bratton of that fateful day nearly 70 years ago.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2024

The music blared and vibrated throughout the building, which was set up like a theater.

From "Breaking Through" by Francisco Jiménez

Every five or 15 minutes, another pager returned to the host stand, blinking and vibrating in the hands of a customer whose table was finally ready.

From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026

The Oxford team achieved this using a quantum system that combines qubits, the basic units of quantum information, with quantum oscillators, which represent vibrating motion.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

José Rivera’s “Marisol” came out around the same time as Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” and both plays, vibrating with millennial anxieties, carry the earthly battle for human survival up to the heavens.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

"It then carried on going for a couple of minutes but there was a horrible vibrating sound."

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

It often seems to me as though it were the vibrating, shuddering air that with a noiseless leap springs upon us; or as though the front itself emitted an electric current which awakened unknown nerve-centres.

From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023