Word.ws English Dictionary

fluctuate

/ˈflʌkt͡ʃu.eɪt/

fluctuate verb: to vary irregularly; to swing.

Verb

fluctuate (third-person singular simple present fluctuates, present participle fluctuating, simple past and past participle fluctuated)

  1. (intransitive) To vary irregularly; to swing.
  2. (intransitive) To undulate.
    • One of them, at great Expence of Algebra, proves, that the Motes, which in Scotomias, we seem to have in our Eyes, are not real Bodies fluctuating in them.1719, William Vickers, An easie and safe method for curing the King's Evil, page 39
  3. (intransitive) To be irresolute; to waver.
    • I fluctuated between wishing he was back home and wishing I'd never met him.
  4. (transitive) To cause to vary irregularly.
  5. (also, figuratively, literally, rare) To rise and fall as a wave; to be tossed up and down the waves.

Adjective

fluctuate (comparative more fluctuate, superlative most fluctuate)

  1. (obsolete) Tossed up and down the waves.
  2. (broadly, obsolete) Wavering, fickle.

fluctuate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

fluctuate in Tamil

தம்புதல், தம்பும்

fluctuate in Urdu

to fluctuate
لہرانا lahrānā

fluctuate in Bengali

উঠানামা করা, অস্থিতিশীল হওয়া, বিচলিত হওয়া

fluctuate in Malayalam

ഇളകുക, സന്ദേഹിക്കുക, കേറിയിറങ്ങിനില്ക്കുക, ചഞ്ചലമായിരിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
fluctuate in Kannada
ಏರುಪೇರಾಗು, ಏಳುಬೀಳು, ಮೇಲಕ್ಕೂ ಕೆಳಕ್ಕೂ ಚಲಿಸು, ಡೋಲಾಯಮಾನವಾಗು
fluctuate in Persian
نوسان کردن navasân kardan

Forms of fluctuate

Verb
third-person singular presentfluctuates
present participlefluctuating
past participlefluctuated
pastfluctuated
Adjective
comparativemore fluctuate
superlativemost fluctuate

Past tense of fluctuate: fluctuated

Origin of fluctuate

First attested in 1630; borrowed from Latin flūctuātus, perfect passive participle of flūctuō (“(of the sea) to surge, swell; (of man) to waver, fluctuate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

Words formed from fluctuate

Questions about fluctuate

What does fluctuate mean?
Fluctuate means to vary irregularly; to swing.
What is fluctuate in Tamil?
Fluctuate in Tamil is தம்புதல், தம்பும். See Fluctuate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is fluctuate?
Fluctuate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce fluctuate?
Fluctuate is pronounced /ˈflʌkt͡ʃu.eɪt/.
What is the past tense of fluctuate?
The past tense of fluctuate is fluctuated.

Words near fluctuate in the dictionary

  1. fluctuability
  2. fluctuable
  3. fluctuance
  4. fluctuancy
  5. fluctuant
  6. fluctuate
  7. fluctuated
  8. fluctuater
  9. fluctuaters
  10. fluctuates
  11. fluctuatest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fluctuate (page history and authors); fluctuate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); لہرانا (Urdu) (page history and authors); Fluctuate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fluctuate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fluctuate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fluctuate.wav.

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