English Dictionary

VACILLATION

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vacillation mean? 

VACILLATION (noun)
  The noun VACILLATION has 2 senses:

1. indecision in speech or actionplay

2. changing location by moving back and forthplay

  Familiarity information: VACILLATION used as a noun is rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


VACILLATION (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Indecision in speech or action

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

hesitation; vacillation; wavering

Hypernyms ("vacillation" is a kind of...):

indecision; indecisiveness; irresolution (doubt concerning two or more possible alternatives or courses of action)

Derivation:

vacillate (be undecided about something; waver between conflicting positions or courses of action)


Sense 2

Meaning:

Changing location by moving back and forth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

swing; swinging; vacillation

Hypernyms ("vacillation" is a kind of...):

motion; move; movement (the act of changing location from one place to another)

Derivation:

vacillate (move or sway in a rising and falling or wavelike pattern)


 Context examples 


At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Fretting cares make grey hairs." (English proverb)

"Never reveal all that you know to others: They might become shrewder than you." (Bhutanese proverb)

"Complaining to someone other than God is disgraceful." (Arabic proverb)

"Anyone who lives will know trying times." (Corsican proverb)



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