Oscillating

adj, verb

adj, verb ·4 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of oscillate form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Moving in a repeated back-and-forth motion; coming and going.

    "But if he be admitted to have been fixed, as he declares, it admits of proof that he has a species of fixedness belonging to him of a very oscillating kind; which may be best illustrated by that of a ship riding off at sea by a single anchor, which at every turn of the tide swings about, and brings her head round to a point of the compass diametrically opposite to that it stood toward before."

  2. 2
    Describing a function or divergent series that moves between multiple values.

    "Highly oscillating sequences converge in the weak topology, i.e., the topology of convergence of integral means."

Adjective
  1. 1
    having periodic vibrations wordnet

Example

More examples

"Wind and weather conditions on the Great Lakes may create a seiche, an oscillating wave which can be several feet high."

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.