pendulate

/ˈpɛn.d͡ʒəl.eɪt/

pendulate verb: to swing like a pendulum.

Verb

pendulate (third-person singular simple present pendulates, present participle pendulating, simple past and past participle pendulated)

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 .1851 December 20, J.O.N Rutter, John W. Parker, “Maguctoid Currents, their Forces and Directions”, in Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Science, and Art, number 1822, page 897
- Watch a male in fight. He will pendulate over one spot for ten or fifteen minutes , then change his position and pendulate again .1903, Nature-study, Entomology: Section D: Lepidoptera, page 8
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.2012, Peter A. Levine, Healing Trauma
- If it stops feeling okay, pendulate to thinking about (or doing) something that feels nurturing for you: it it's available to you, get up and move around, look at a favorite picture or painting, talk to a friend, or pet your dog or cat.2023, Bret Lyon, Sheila Rubin, Embracing Shame

pendulate (comparative more pendulate, superlative most pendulate)

pendulous.
- Here the rachis is bent at the point of its origin, and thereby it produces pendulate inflorescence.1967, Kenjiro Fujii, Cytologia, page 447
- Above the lower headcut, phreatophytic mesquite and little leaf sumac hug the banks, drawing pendulate water from the silts remaining from former marsh deposits and sending long taproots into channel stores.2007, Susan L. Woodward, “Modern Vegetation of the Murray Springs Area and the Upper San Pedro Valley”, in Caleb Vance Haynes, Bruce B. Huckell, editor, Murray Springs, page 58

ನೇತಾಡು, ತೂಗಾಡು, ಒನೆದಾಡು, ಅನಿಶ್ಚಿತವಾಗಿರು, ಡೋಲಾಯಮಾನವಾಗಿರು

Lungarella and Metta (in Lungarella, M. and Metta, G. 2003) studies the role of changes in the qcquisition of primary motor abilities: learning to pendulate (to swing like a pendulum) or bounce.2010, Temel, Turgay, System and Circuit Design for Biologically-Inspired Intelligent Learning, page 7:
The first group of genotypes demonstrates a pendulate/spreading form, whereas the second group remains upright when the fruits grow on the shoots.2021, Debashis Mandal, Ursula Wermund, Lop Phavaphutanon, Temperate Fruits: Production, Processing, and Marketing:

Verb
third-person singular present	pendulates
present participle	pendulating
past participle	pendulated
past	pendulated
Adjective
comparative	more pendulate
superlative	most pendulate

What does pendulate mean?: Pendulate means to swing like a pendulum.
What is pendulate in Kannada?: Pendulate in Kannada is ನೇತಾಡು, ತೂಗಾಡು, ಒನೆದಾಡು. See Pendulate meaning in Kannada.
How do you use pendulate in a sentence?: Lungarella and Metta (in Lungarella, M. and Metta, G. 2003) studies the role of changes in the qcquisition of primary motor abilities: learning to pendulate (to swing like a pendulum) or bounce.
What part of speech is pendulate?: Pendulate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce pendulate?: Pendulate is pronounced /ˈpɛn.d͡ʒəl.eɪt/ (US).
What is the past tense of pendulate?: The past tense of pendulate is pendulated.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pendulate (page history and authors); pendulate (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

Cite this entry: “pendulate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pendulate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.