fluctuation (fluktuashon)

[OF. fluctuatiun, fluctuacion, F. fluctuation = Sp. fluctua cion = Pg. fluctuação = It. fluttuazione, To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd In silken fluctuation and the swarm Of female whisperers. Tennyson, Prince , vi. 2. Alternating action or movement; a wavering or varying course; mutation: as, the fluc tuations of prices or of the funds; fluctuations of opinion. The excentric i ties, it is true, will still vary, but too slowly, and to so small an extent as to produce no inconveniency from fluctuation of temperature and season. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxii. Latin was in the sixteenth century a fixed language, while the living languages were in a state of fluctuation . Macaulay , Lord Bacon, 3. In med ., the alternating motion of pus or other fluids perceptible on palpation. The experimenter injected three-fourths of a centimetre of the mixture [culture of curved bacilli] under the skin of his left fore-arm, with the result of much ædem a to us swelling and some pain, with deep fluctuation in the region of the puncture three days afterwards. Science , V. 482. =Syn. 1 and 2. Oscillation, vacillation.