Fluctuates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To undergo variations in a manner that results in constant instability or change in quantity or intensity
2. Changes continually in a way that is not steady or predictable
3. Moves up and down in value or amount without a fixed pattern

Etymology: The verb "fluctuates" is the third-person singular form of "fluctuate", and its root is a Latin image of the sea. The Latin "flūctuō" meant "to surge or swell", and it was used of waves, and it could also describe a person wavering in mind. It is built from "fluctus", a wave or flood, which comes from the verb "fluere", "to flow", the same root behind English "fluid" and "flux". So at its heart the word is about water moving back and forth before it is about anything abstract. English borrowed the word from Latin in 1630, and it was used in its literal sense of rising and falling waters before it took on the broader idea of anything that shifts up and down. The "-ate" ending is the Latin verb-forming suffix that turned the noun-based stem into an action word, which is why the form ends so neatly in "-ate" rather than sounding like a plain English verb.

Synonyms: varies, oscillates, changes, wavers, alternates

Antonyms: stabilizes, remains, settles, fixes, stands