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.

It is closer to music than epic, a mesmerizing suite of songs that conveys Tennyson’s private sorrow as he vacillates from unbearable agony to precarious hope.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026

Driven by a dark kineticism, it vacillates between contempt and gratitude at a velocity that catches my husband, my therapist, even me off-guard.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2024

He apparently vacillates between moments of sleeping with his mouth open in a sign of utter disinterest and being jolted to stare menacingly at witnesses, the judge and other people in the courtroom.

From Salon • Apr. 29, 2024

The rhythmic language vacillates widely between insistent pulse and total freedom.

From New York Times • Jun. 9, 2022

Criticism and admiration seem alike impossible, and the mind vacillates between a feeling that the artist is playing a practical joke upon the spectator, or that the painter is suffering from some peculiar optical delusion.

From The Gentle Art of Making Enemies by Whistler, James McNeill