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.
-
Physics. to have, produce, or generate oscillations.
-
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
-
oscillatessimple
-
have oscillatedperfect
-
has oscillatedperfect
-
am oscillatingprogressive
-
are oscillatingprogressive
-
is oscillatingprogressive
-
have been oscillatingperfect progressive
-
has been oscillatingperfect progressive
Past
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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
Hinged panels, used to roll and slow an aircraft, rapidly oscillate from the shockwaves and wind.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
The waves could have gotten the vessel to oscillate back and forth, Sharpe said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
Conditions oscillate between El Nino and its opposite La Nina, with neutral conditions in between.
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 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
The Relative Strength Index, which oscillates between zero and 100, is a widely followed underlying technical indicator that measures the magnitude of recent gains against the magnitude of recent losses.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 19, 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
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
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
The Feeneys oscillated between C and B over the years, a plus or minus coming depending on how much time had passed since the founding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 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
The only sound was the fan, clicking each time it oscillated across the room.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
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
Like many recent theater school grads, Dela Cruz was still trying to find his niche as a performer, oscillating between the pursuits of ethnic ambiguity — a casting asset — and cultural identity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 17, 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
According to Edlefsen’s rudimentary ion detectors, something was going on inside the flask, but whether it was protons accelerating in resonance with an oscillating electric field was by no means clear.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
