Word.ws English Dictionary

undulate

/ˈʌndjəleɪt/

undulate verb: to cause to move in a wavelike motion.

undulate: to cause to move in a wavelike motion
Image: Andrey Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

undulate (third-person singular simple present undulates, present participle undulating, simple past and past participle undulated)

  1. (transitive) To cause to move in a wavelike motion.
    • Breath vocalized, i.e., vibrated and undulated.1669, William Holder, Elements of Speech: An Essay of Inquiry into the Natural Production of Letters: […], London: […] T. N[ewcomb] for J[ohn] Martyn printer to the R[oyal] Society, […], →OCLC
  2. (transitive) To cause to resemble a wave.
  3. (intransitive) To move in wavelike motions.
    • His tongue undulated.
    • Come lovely and soothing death, / Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, / In the day, in the night, to all, to each, / Sooner or later delicate death.1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems
  4. (intransitive) To appear wavelike.

Adjective

IPA/ˈʌndjəlɪt/

undulate (comparative more undulate, superlative most undulate)

  1. Wavy in appearance or form.
  2. Changing the pitch and volume of one's voice.
  3. sinuous, winding up and down.

undulate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

undulate in Tamil

அலை, அலைபோன்ற, தொடரலைபோன்ற

undulate in Urdu

ڈولنا, ہلکورے لینا, لہرانا

undulate in Malayalam

അലയ്ക്കുക, തിരമറിയുക, ഉയർന്നുതാണിരിക്കുക

undulate in Kannada

ತೊನೆದಾಡು, ಅಲೆಗಳಂತಿರು, ಉಬ್ಬುತಗ್ಗಾಗಿರು, ತರಂಗಿತವಾಗಿರು, ಓಲಾಡು, ಹರಿದಾಡು

Examples of undulate in a sentence

  • I’m sure he pictured something Alpish or Rocky, not the mildly undulating Blue Ridge.
  • Performing a curiously melancholy, undulating developpe, the dancers point their legs at each other like accusing fingers.
  • The body was that of a monstrous python, undulating through the water.

All 25 example sentences with undulate

Forms of undulate

Verb
third-person singular presentundulates
present participleundulating
past participleundulated
pastundulated
Adjective
comparativemore undulate
superlativemost undulate

Origin of undulate

First attested in 1664; borrowed from New Latin undulātus, the perfect passive participle of undulō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from an unattested *undula (“small wave”), diminutive of Latin unda (“wave”).

Borrowed from Late Latin undulātus (“undulated”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

Words formed from undulate

Questions about undulate

What does undulate mean?
Undulate means to cause to move in a wavelike motion.
What is undulate in Tamil?
Undulate in Tamil is அலை, அலைபோன்ற, தொடரலைபோன்ற. See Undulate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is undulate?
Undulate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce undulate?
Undulate is pronounced /ˈʌndjəleɪt/.
What is the past tense of undulate?
The past tense of undulate is undulated.

Words near undulate in the dictionary

  1. undulant
  2. undulant fever
  3. undular
  4. undularly
  5. undulary
  6. undulate
  7. undulated
  8. undulated antshrike
  9. undulated antshrikes
  10. undulated tinamou
  11. undulated tinamous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: undulate (page history and authors); undulate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); undulate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); undulate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); undulate (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-undulate.wav.

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