vacillate

The studio spectators cut him off with a loud, extended chorus of boos, as Colbert appeared to vacillate between laughing and choking up.

From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2025

You have to see it so many times because you have to vacillate between watching the show and watching the audience.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2024

The Oscars can often vacillate between insidery navel-gazing and a ho-hum march toward best picture, but occasionally an acceptance speech cuts through the noise with authenticity.

From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023

His leadership skills were lackluster, he was not a charismatic or inspiring speaker, he tended to vacillate in decision-making and he struggled to retain the best staffers.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2022

His yellow eyes vacillate between me and Autumn.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

It is closer to music than epic, a mesmerizing suite of songs that conveys Tennyson’s private sorrow as he vacillates from unbearable agony to precarious hope.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

Peake’s staid and knowing portrayal stands in contrast and complement to that of Petticrew, whose resolute manner vacillates between a flinty swagger and true anguish.

From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2024

Driven by a dark kineticism, it vacillates between contempt and gratitude at a velocity that catches my husband, my therapist, even me off-guard.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2024

She vacillates between optimism and despair over Iran’s future.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 24, 2023

The fate of books vacillates with the fancies of book-lovers, and the improvements of a later age.

From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli

Both sides have vacillated between tough talk and de-escalation in recent days, but the rhetoric took a harder turn on Tuesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025

His children, Kelly and Jack, vacillated between showering him with affection and berating him for not catering to their whims.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2025

Her parents vacillated between wanting to take a hard line and accommodating Olivia’s apparent limitations for the sake of ease.

From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2025

When Feinstein later vacillated over whether to fire the police chief, any early goodwill she enjoyed as mayor evaporated.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2023

My love for him vacillated from one entry to another.

From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi

The film has wavered too much, and the story’s vacillating opinion on devices starts to point back at Disney.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026

They pose the theory that the stock market is vacillating between thematic momentum and macro conditions.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 15, 2026

The arrival of the Iamaleava brothers prompted quarterbacks Joey Aguilar and Robert McDaniel to enter the transfer portal, with Demaricus Davis vacillating on his future, according to Foster.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2025

Oppenheimer modulates the lighting during the scenes from cool to warm and back again, underlining the vacillating feelings they can’t acknowledge outright.

From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2024

I had been vacillating during the last month between Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker.

From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer