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
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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
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are oscillatingprogressive
-
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:
"By carefully tracking the direction the radio waves and X-rays oscillate as the magnetar rotates, the team found that the alignment of 1E1547's magnetic and rotational poles were ideal for detecting vacuum birefringence."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 18, 2026
The waves could have gotten the vessel to oscillate back and forth, Sharpe said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
Thus, governments oscillate between ignoring developments that are moving too fast to process and aggressively intervening when scary risks appear.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
Conditions oscillate between La Nina and its warming opposite El Nino, with neutral conditions in between.
From Barron's ● Mar. 23, 2026
Would it oscillate back and forth until it came to rest?
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Light also has a property known as polarization, which describes how its electric field oscillates.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
Meanwhile, Brolin’s Bangley oscillates in personality from miserable bastard to laugh factory.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
RSI, which oscillates between 10 and 100, tends to rise when prices rise.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 6, 2026
No team in English soccer oscillates faster between a romp to certain glory and imminent collapse than Arsenal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026
Good writing can flip the way the world is perceived, like the silhouette in psychology textbooks which oscillates between a goblet and two faces.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Aside from early in the war, when Mr. Trump oscillated between regime change and a Venezuelan-style renovation, he has sought a diplomatic ending to the conflict.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
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
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
His rebellious spirit made him violate all the taboos and consequently he always oscillated between moods of intense elation and depression.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
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
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
While this study focused on plasmons, the new chip-scale THz spectroscope could detect other types of quasiparticles oscillating in many different 2D materials.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 21, 2025
She, Mama, and Tía Beatriz sat together on the couch, listening to the oscillating roar of the storm outside—low, then loud, then low again.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
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