Bobulating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Moving up and down repeatedly in a light, bouncing motion, like a cork riding on water
2. Rising and dipping rhythmically, bobbing about in a playful or unsteady way
3. Jerking or bouncing lightly up and down, as something buoyant does on the surface of a liquid

Etymology: "Bobulating" is the present participle of "bobulate," a verb that is a playful, nonce-style formation. It is not a standard English word with a deep history: its base, "bobulate," is recorded only as a rare, humorous variant of "bobble" and "bob," the ideas of bouncing or jerking up and down. The verb "bob" is itself old, first recorded in English in the 14th century, and seems to derive from the idea of a short, sharp movement. "Bobble" appears later, from the 16th century onward, and is most likely a frequentative formed on "bob," meaning a repeated bobbing motion. "Bobulate" follows the same pattern of adding a sound-echoing ending to a base word, a pattern that produces many lighthearted coinages in English. Because the history is so plainly a matter of derivation from "bob," the most useful fact here is that the word's sense comes straight from that base: a repeated up-and-down or bouncing motion, rather than any older or separate root.