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WAVERING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of being unsteady and subject to changes
Example:
he kept a record of price fluctuations
Synonyms:
fluctuation; wavering
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("wavering" is a kind of...):
irregularity; unregularity (not characterized by a fixed principle or rate; at irregular intervals)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wavering"):
scintillation (the twinkling of the stars caused when changes in the density of the earth's atmosphere produce uneven refraction of starlight)
Derivation:
waver (move or sway in a rising and falling or wavelike pattern)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Indecision in speech or action
Synonyms:
hesitation; vacillation; wavering
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("wavering" is a kind of...):
indecision; indecisiveness; irresolution (doubt concerning two or more possible alternatives or courses of action)
Derivation:
waver (pause or hold back in uncertainty or unwillingness)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Uncertain in purpose or action
Synonyms:
vacillant; vacillating; wavering
Classified under:
Similar:
irresolute (uncertain how to act or proceed)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb waver
Context examples:
When he put up his arms, each day, to begin, they pained exquisitely, and the first few blows, struck and received, racked his soul; after that things grew numb, and he fought on blindly, seeing as in a dream, dancing and wavering, the large features and burning, animal-like eyes of Cheese-Face.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
His unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, Maria's decided attachment, and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility: Miss Crawford's letter stampt it a fact.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
The dusk had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie; kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a delicate desire to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot; when I think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right—I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with mine.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But no one stopped it, and he was glad, punching on wearily and endlessly with his one arm, battering away at a bloody something before him that was not a face but a horror, an oscillating, hideous, gibbering, nameless thing that persisted before his wavering vision and would not go away.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
