vacillate

The studio spectators cut him off with a loud, extended chorus of boos, as Colbert appeared to vacillate between laughing and choking up.

From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2025

The other is that the stock market has so many reasons to vacillate just now that tariff announcements may not matter very much.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2025

The Oscars can often vacillate between insidery navel-gazing and a ho-hum march toward best picture, but occasionally an acceptance speech cuts through the noise with authenticity.

From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023

His leadership skills were lackluster, he was not a charismatic or inspiring speaker, he tended to vacillate in decision-making and he struggled to retain the best staffers.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2022

Because of this, he began to seek out new allies and to vacillate with France during the campaign the French undertook in the Kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards besieging Gaeta.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

It is closer to music than epic, a mesmerizing suite of songs that conveys Tennyson’s private sorrow as he vacillates from unbearable agony to precarious hope.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

He apparently vacillates between moments of sleeping with his mouth open in a sign of utter disinterest and being jolted to stare menacingly at witnesses, the judge and other people in the courtroom.

From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2024

The rhythmic language vacillates widely between insistent pulse and total freedom.

From New York Times ● Jun. 9, 2022

But it wouldn’t be a reach to believe the NBA legend’s criticism of his portrayal in the show — as a tempestuous and profane malcontent who vacillates between anger and despair — helped boost ratings.

From Washington Post ● May 15, 2022

"Common sense permits us to elude fear which always seizes those whose judgment vacillates; it removes the defiance of the Will and indicates infallibly the correct attitude to assume."

From Common Sense, How to Exercise It by Mme. Blanchard Yoritomo-Tashi

Both sides have vacillated between tough talk and de-escalation in recent days, but the rhetoric took a harder turn on Tuesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025

Her parents vacillated between wanting to take a hard line and accommodating Olivia’s apparent limitations for the sake of ease.

From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2025

UCLA’s energy level in practice has vacillated wildly the last few weeks, with seemingly little correlation to results.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2024

My emotions vacillated from fury to giddiness to crushing depression on an hourly basis.

From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2023

She and Bunny had a relationship the likes of which I had seldom seen except in couples married for twenty years or more, a relationship which vacillated between the touching and the annoying.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

The film has wavered too much, and the story’s vacillating opinion on devices starts to point back at Disney.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026

They pose the theory that the stock market is vacillating between thematic momentum and macro conditions.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 15, 2026

Oppenheimer modulates the lighting during the scenes from cool to warm and back again, underlining the vacillating feelings they can’t acknowledge outright.

From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2024

After a wildly vacillating game against Marquette in which the Bruins’ 12-point lead became a seven-point deficit, they had the ball trailing by two with 21 seconds left.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2023

A few days later, he was back in a funk, vacillating again; he didn’t want to act like he hadn’t made a terrible choice.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel