Pendulate

//ˈpɛn.d͡ʒəl.eɪt// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To swing like a pendulum.

    "There is an old trick of suspending a shilling by a thread, and causing it to pendulate within a glass , so as to strike its sides , the thread being held between the finger and thumb ."

  2. 2
    To vacillate between states, especially states of arousal and of relaxation.

    "What's important to realize is that you can pendulate—swing back and forth—between these sensations of expansion and contraction."

Adjective
  1. 1
    pendulous.

    "Here the rachis is bent at the point of its origin, and thereby it produces pendulate inflorescence."

Example

More examples

"There is an old trick of suspending a shilling by a thread, and causing it to pendulate within a glass , so as to strike its sides , the thread being held between the finger and thumb ."

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