oscillating

adj

1. Moving in a repeated back-and-forth motion; coming and going.

   “But if he be admitted to have been fixed, as he declares, it admits of proof that he has a species of fixedness belonging to him of a very oscillating kind; which may be best illustrated by that of a ship riding off at sea by a single anchor, which at every turn of the tide swings about, and brings her head round to a point of the compass diametrically opposite to that it stood toward before.”

   “In general the experiments proved that in nephritis the secretion of the gastric mucosa is vitiated. This vitiation is exceedingly oscillating.”

   “When examining work on the history of sociology, however, one finds a more oscillating pattern: disciplinary marginality, followed by greater centrality, followed by a return to the margins.”

2. Describing a function or divergent series that moves between multiple values.

   “Highly oscillating sequences converge in the weak topology, i.e., the topology of convergence of integral means.”

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of oscillate