UNDULATE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does undulate mean? 

• UNDULATE (adjective)
  The adjective UNDULATE has 1 sense:

1. having a wavy margin and rippled surface

  Familiarity information: UNDULATE used as an adjective is very rare.

• UNDULATE (verb)
  The verb UNDULATE has 4 senses:

1. stir up (water) so as to form ripples

2. occur in soft rounded shapes

3. move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion

4. increase and decrease in volume or pitch, as if in waves

  Familiarity information: UNDULATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNDULATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having a wavy margin and rippled surface

Similar:

smooth (of the margin of a leaf shape; not broken up into teeth)

• UNDULATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they undulate    ... he / she / it undulates   
Past simple: undulated   
Past participle: undulated   
-ing form: undulating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Stir up (water) so as to form ripples

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

cockle; riffle; ripple; ruffle; undulate

Hypernyms (to "undulate" is one way to...):

flow; flux (move or progress freely as if in a stream)

"Undulate" entails doing...:

fold; fold up; turn up (bend or lay so that one part covers the other)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Occur in soft rounded shapes

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

roll; undulate

Context example:

The hills rolled past

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sense 3

Meaning:

Move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

flap; roll; undulate; wave

Context example:

the waves rolled towards the beach

Hypernyms (to "undulate" is one way to...):

move (move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "undulate"):

luff (flap when the wind is blowing equally on both sides)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

undulation ((physics) a movement up and down or back and forth)

undulation (wavelike motion; a gentle rising and falling in the manner of waves)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Increase and decrease in volume or pitch, as if in waves

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

The singer's voice undulated

Hypernyms (to "undulate" is one way to...):

change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

 Context examples 

Presently it plunged in, and for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating over the water.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A blue heaven stretched above, a green rolling plain undulated below, intersected with hedge-rows and flecked with grazing sheep.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Oh! it's very kind of you, Copperfield, returned Uriah, undulating all over, and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with a few pines and a great number of contorted trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skins between the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above the brush-wood.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)