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Fluctuation   Listen
noun
Fluctuation  n.  
1.
A motion like that of waves; a moving in this and that direction; as, the fluctuations of the sea.
2.
A wavering; unsteadiness; as, fluctuations of opinion; fluctuations of prices.
3.
(Med.) The motion or undulation of a fluid collected in a natural or artifical cavity, which is felt when it is subjected to pressure or percussion.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fluctuation" Quotes from Famous Books



... permanent elevation at one point is impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the 'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show how previous writers had been content to notice ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... following day, feeling something as if he were making an unholy compact with the devil. He could not possibly have said whether he really expected anything from it or not. His mind had been in a state of bewilderment and constant fluctuation during the entire interview, at one moment carried away by the contagious confidence of the doctor's tone, and impressed by his calm, clear, scientific explanations and the exhibition of the electrical apparatus, and the next moment reacting into utter scepticism and contemptuous ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... reasoner, that his opinions are true, and with equal facility submit to the next artful sophist, who avows even contrary sentiments. The natural effect of this inconstancy will be, a disregard of ALL truth, and a ready admission of every sceptical principle. When the mind is in such a state of fluctuation and uncertainty, or rather the willing slave of every tyrant, it is well prepared for vice: it will admit a criminal thought, as well as a sentimental error, and the same plausibility which could successfully insinuate a sceptical principle, can ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... family of seven for 10 days; five of the family to consume 0.8 as much as an adult. Calculate the cost of the food; then calculate on the same basis the probable cost of food for one year, adding 20 per cent for fluctuation in market price and additional foods not included ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... outside influences, and the fluctuations reflect and accentuate the varying shades of market opinions of many individuals. But in the market for the actual commodity, the quotations are made by comparatively few men, which means that there will be less fluctuation. ...
— About sugar buying for Jobbers - How you can lessen business risks by trading in refined sugar futures • B. W. Dyer

... treatment. In the middle of the process, while the patient was conversing with the doctor, she was suddenly "obsessed." Coincidental with this obsession, the galvanometer showed a tremendous and permanent fluctuation, indicating that the resistance of the body to the current had suddenly and ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... know to the centime each fluctuation of the wheat-market have no eye for the tawny beauty of a whole field of the precious product fluctuating to a breeze. Women stayed by steel and convention into the mold of form love the soft faces of flowers looking up at them from ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... It would be wonderful if so simple a series {285} had but one kind of occurrence. As it is, our trigonometry being founded on the circle, [pi] first appears as the ratio stated. If, for instance, a deep study of probable fluctuation from average had preceded, [pi] might have emerged as a number perfectly indispensable in such problems as: What is the chance of the number of aces lying between a million x and a million - x, when six million of throws are made with a die? ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... gone out of the office and lunched together. And the confidential clerk thus chattering his news, declared that his employer was now evidently uneasy; and that from that uneasiness he augured a sudden fluctuation or fall in what had lately seemed the most valuable stock in ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs. This same summer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... of desolation yields to soothing play of waters—a berceuse of the sea—and now a song sings softly (in horn), though strangely jarring on the murmuring lullaby. The soothing cheer is anon broken by a shift of new tone. There is a fluctuation of pleasant and strange sounds; a dulcet air on rapturous harmony is hushed ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... speech of Hector shows the fluctuation of his mind, with much discernment on the part of the poet. He breaks out, after having apparently meditated a return to the city. But the imagined reproaches of Polydamas, and the anticipated scorn of the Trojans forbid it. He soliloquizes upon ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... unsold. They take nothing but cash in payment; for, notwithstanding the endeavours of our Government, the notes of the Bank of France have never been in circulation among them. They have also been subject to losses by the fluctuation of paper money, by extortions, requisitions, and by the maximum. In this class of my countrymen remains still some little national spirit and some independence of character; but these are far from being favourable to Bonaparte, or to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... was first established by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi in the Boylston prize essay for 1876; showing that menstrual life is associated with a wave of well-marked vital energy, which manifests itself in a monthly fluctuation of the tempera ture of the body, in the daily amount of the excretion of urea and of carbonic acid, and of the rate and tension of the pulse. The wave attains its maximum during the week preceding menstruation, ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... Fluctuation in the price of base metals is a factor so much to be taken into consideration, that it is desirable in estimating mine values to reduce the working costs to a basis of a "per unit" of finished metal. This method has the great advantage of indicating ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... presently enveloped the little ship, and the two hung side by side. Winford eased the tender in toward the big craft, fully realizing that the meteor warning dial in the control room of the freighter would hint at his presence by its pronounced fluctuation. But there was no help for it; he could only take the chance that the navigator in charge would not investigate. Winford peered up anxiously at the windows of the control room. Apparently the little craft had ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat

... system, accompanied with this perpetual fluctuation and change, both in the form of the Government and in the persons of the rulers, what is the security which has hitherto existed, and what new security is now offered? Before an answer is given to this ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... the cases, 93 per cent. of the women, 77 per cent. of the men. Discussing the returns more minutely, Starbuck finds that only 6 per cent. are relapses from the religious faith which the conversion confirmed, and that the backsliding complained of is in most only a fluctuation in the ardor of sentiment. Only six of the hundred cases report a change of faith. Starbuck's conclusion is that the effect of conversion is to bring with it "a changed attitude towards life, which is fairly constant and permanent, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... Plato and his followers, mankind have again and again returned to a sensational philosophy. As to some of the early thinkers, amid the fleetings of sensible objects, ideas alone seemed to be fixed, so to a later generation amid the fluctuation of philosophical opinions the only fixed points appeared to be outward objects. Any pretence of knowledge which went beyond them implied logical processes, of the correctness of which they had no assurance and ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... dear, and Laurent is a very sage old gentleman indeed, and you may follow his counsel with perfect certainty. I can't help owning,' he went on, 'that I've been a little nervous lately about the fluctuation of your spirits, and I'm glad he happened to drop in and have a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... mythological fables (such, at least, as they are known to us,) could have furnished sufficient materials for the compass of an entire tragedy. It is true, the poets, in the various editions of the same story, had a great latitude of selection; and this very fluctuation of tradition justified them in going still farther, and making considerable alterations in the circumstances of an event, so that the inventions employed for this purpose in one piece sometimes contradict the story as given by the same ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the naked eye, in which state it remains about five months, and continues increasing during the remainder of its period. Such is the general course of its phases. But the mean period above assigned would appear to be subject to a cyclical fluctuation embracing eighty-eight such periods, and having the effect of gradually lengthening and shortening alternately those intervals to the extent of twenty-five days one way and the other. The irregularities in the degree of brightness attained at ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... further be elaborated, but the essential data for those interested in food economics can be obtained from the table itself. Wholesale prices are used for the reason that retail prices are subject to great variation. The fluctuation of retail prices does not make it feasible to give their equivalents for the wholesale list, but the relationship can be judged by noting the equivalents for the extremes. In this table, for example, the retail price of 2500 calories of rice ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... suggestive imagination, not with exhaustive authority. He takes up one subject after another that has been, so to speak, closed and locked to the ordinary layman, and opens it up again with some original thrust of wholesome scepticism, and makes it flexible and porous. He indicates change and fluctuation and malleableness and the organic capriciousness of life, where the professors have shut themselves up in logical dilemmas. When it comes to the matter of his actual approach to these things it will be found that he plunges his hand boldly into the flowing stream, in the way of a true essayist ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... must appear equally rash and gratuitous to suppose, even if it be a delusion, that an institute, which has thus enlisted the sympathies of so many of the greatest minds of all races and of all ages—which is alone stable and progressive amidst instability and fluctuation,—will soon come to an end. Still more absurdly premature is it to raise a paean over its fall, upon every new attack upon it, when it has already survived so many. This, in fact, is a tone which, though every age renews it, should long since have been rebuked ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... early in 1803; a mild, amiable, and accomplished man, who has thus in a letter described his own philosophy: "My study of antiquities," he says, "has kept me in constant thought of the perpetual fluctuation of everything. The whole art is really to live all the DAYS of our life; and not with anxious care disturb the sweetest hour that life affords—which is the present. Admire the Creator, and all His works, to us incomprehensible; ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... the grazier over those who crop with grain. The profits of wheat appear well in expectation on paper, but the prospect is blasted by a severe winter, appearance of insects, bad weather in harvesting, in threshing, for there are but few barns at the West, or transporting to market, or last, a fluctuation ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the part of both those who talk and those who listen is required to get up the proceedings into a state of pleasant activity; the latter are fairly managed, and are somewhat like "experiences meetings;" talking, singing, and praying are done at them; there is a constant fluctuation, whilst they are going on, between bliss and contrition; and you are sometimes puzzled to find out—taking the sounds made as a criterion—whether the attendants are preparing to fight, or fling themselves into a fit of crying, or hug ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... employment supervisor must have more assistants, there must be more clerks and stenographers, according to the number of employees handled and the character of the work to be done. There are some organizations in which there is very little fluctuation in the personnel. In such cases a small employment department is all that is necessary, even although a large number of employees may be on the payroll. In other kinds of work there is a very large fluctuation, under ordinary conditions, and in such ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... one of the most stable and prosperous of post-Communist states. Delays in enterprise restructuring and failure to develop a well-functioning capital market played major roles in Czech economic troubles, which culminated in a currency crisis in May. The currency was forced out of its fluctuation band as investors worried that the current account deficit, which reached nearly 8% of GDP in 1996, would become unsustainable. After expending $3 billion in vain to support the currency, the central bank let it float. The growing current account imbalance reflected a surge ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... manager of a large department store in San Francisco was kind enough to show me his record of departmental profits for a number of months. The fluctuation in relative profits of different departments month by month was apparent, especially the fact that after a certain month several departments which had previously earned high profits became relatively much less ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss

... attraction. Because attraction between agent(s) and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of attraction produced, if desired, a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... of his motives which I believed myself to possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel's name and Carmel's character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not to be counted ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... point of his meditations that Mr Farquharson met Squire Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British North America, an old-fashioned building with an appearance of dignity and probity, a look of having been founded long ago upon principles which raised it above fluctuation, exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire Ormiston might be expected to meet. The two men, though politically opposed, were excellent ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... Fluctuation in Tariff Policy.—As each of the old parties was divided on the currency question, it is not surprising that there was some confusion in their ranks over the tariff. Like the silver issue, the tariff tended to align the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... of these exquisites was ruled by a punctilious etiquette, and their knee-breeches, lace ruffles, diamond buckles, and chapeaux bras were subject to the strictest regulations and to every fluctuation of the prevailing mode. Their gold-handled spy-glasses were impartially directed towards the stars upon the stage or to the belles in the neighbouring boxes, where, from the grand tier to the roof, was ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... favor of civil liberty. The end they esteemed beneficent and noble; the means, regular and constitutional. To grant or refuse supplies was the undoubted privilege of the commons. And as all human governments, particularly those of a mixed frame, are in continual fluctuation, it was as natural, in their opinion, and allowable, for popular assemblies to take advantage of favorable incidents, in order to secure the subject, as for monarchs, in order to extend their own authority. With pleasure they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... roughly, on the proportion between population and capital. It is a common saying that wages are high when trade is good. Capital which was lying idle is brought into complete efficiency, and wages, in the particular occupation concerned, rise. But this is but a temporary fluctuation, and nothing can permanently alter general wages except an increase or diminution of capital itself compared with the quantity of labour offering itself ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... the surplus labor army being established, there remains to be established the economic necessity for the surplus labor army. The simplest and most obvious need is that brought about by the fluctuation of production. If, when production is at low ebb, all men are at work, it necessarily follows that when production increases there will be no men to do the increased work. This may seem almost childish, and, if not childish, at least ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... pull upon it, this way and that, as it was agitated by the fluctuation of the water, it soon drew it down, and the boat, being now entirely at liberty, began to move slowly off from the shore. It soon drifted out where it was more fully exposed to the action of the wind, when it began to move much faster. And thus, while our party of voyagers were eating their ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott

... to the punishment of hearing these reproaches from men of honor, was the victim of a rapid and violent fluctuation of feeling. Hope, fear, triumph, doubt, remorse, alternately swayed him. As he saw the fugitives leaping from the walls, he shouted exultingly, without accurately discerning what manner of men they were, that the city was his, that four thousand ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to argue with you the impropriety and offence of a Gothic revenge. But it is necessary upon a subject so important as that which now employs my pen, to be honest and explicit. It is not a time for compliment, it is not a moment for disguise and fluctuation. Whatever were the merits of the contest, I cannot forget that your hand is deformed with the blood of my husband. My lord, you have my sincerest good wishes. I bear you none of that ill will and covert revenge, that are equally the disgrace of reason and ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... branches often display the different forms of cut-leaved, fern-like, oak-leaved and other variously shaped leaves on the same twigs. But this is merely due to the wide variability of the degree of fissure and is to be considered only as a fluctuation between somewhat widely distant extremes, which may even apparently include [180] the form of the common beech-leaves. It is not a bud-variation at all, and it is to be met with quite commonly while the true reversions by buds are very rare and are of the ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... were at home. Even now he has his own servant, bought with his own wealth. Slavery was not a hard condition in the house of Ulysses; it was domestic in the best sense probably. Indeed the slaves were often of as high birth as their masters, who in turn might be slaves in the next fluctuation of war. Eumaeus himself was of kingly blood, and he retains his regal character in ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... all-surrounding public life brings private men closer together. There they stand, while the tides of successive Administrations sweep by them, and their relation be-[110] comes constantly more interesting from the fluctuation of everything else. It is really curious to see how the private and resident society of Washington breathes freer, and prepares to enjoy itself when Congress is about to rise and leave ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... why does he declare as explicitly as truly, that 'the judgment, after it has been long passive, by degrees loses its power of becoming active when exertion is necessary'?—Once more to point out the fluctuation in Sir Joshua's notions on this subject of the advantages of natural genius and artificial study, he says, when recommending the proper objects of ambition to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... Authority may go unarmed. The task of contriving such weapons is early abandoned. In three months George's hot resolve was cooled; in six it was forgotten; at the end of three years, after considerable fluctuation, his allowance stood at minus two pounds for ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the State—such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... jealousy into a flame; and the explosion is immediate and terrible as a volcano. The dialogues in Lear, in Macbeth, that between Brutus and Cassius, and nearly all those in Shakspeare, where the interest is wrought up to its highest pitch, afford examples of this dramatic fluctuation of passion. The interest in Chaucer is quite different: it is like the course of a river, strong, and full, and increasing. In Shakspeare, on the contrary, it is like the sea, agitated this way and that, and loud-lashed by furious storms; while in the still pauses ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... misgiving about Himself. Only, I think, moments of a dreadful insight when he heard behind him the creeping of the tide of oblivion, and it frightened him. He was sensitive to every little fluctuation in his vogue. He had the fear of its vanishing before his eyes. And there he was, shut up among all his splendor with his fear; and it was his wife's work and Antigone's to keep it from him, to stand between him and that vision. He was like a child when his terror ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... away. On the 13th day, (being six weeks since wounded in the thigh,) the patient perceived a tumour at the original cicatrix on his thigh, which had appeared during the preceding night. On the 14th, it had enlarged to three times its former size: it was painful; fluctuation was evident; but there was no pulsation, not even the thrilling noise, which is evident in the last stage of aneurism. A consultation was called, to determine whether it was an abscess or an aneurism. ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... that the one has no Relation to the other. Yet the same People will readily own that the fluttering of the Flame of a Candle is a certain token of Wind, which however is not discernible by their Feeling; because it lies within the Compass of their Understanding to discern that this Fluctuation of the Flame is caused by the Wind acting upon it, and therefore they are inclined to believe this, though it does not fall actually under the Cognizance of their Senses. But a Man of a larger Compass of Knowledge, ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge

... degree that has had no parallel since, unless it may be, on the Southern side during our civil war. Politics and religion were one, and removal to Ipswich had not deadened the interest with which they watched and commented on every fluctuation in the stormy situation at "home," as they still called England, Cotton taking active part in all discussions as ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... in this one undeniable fact—the daily business done there foots up in dollars and cents more than the total trade of any whole State of the Union, except New York; and, although the great bulk of transactions are made in the midst of intense excitement, incident to rapid and sometimes violent fluctuation of values, and, although gigantic trades are made binding by only a wink or a nod, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the contracting parties stand rigidly by their bargains, prove ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... occurred of any of the public money deposited under its provisions. Whilst it has proved to be safe and useful to the Government, its effects have been most beneficial upon the business of the country. It has tended powerfully to secure an exemption from that inflation and fluctuation of the paper currency so injurious to domestic industry and rendering so uncertain the rewards of labor, and, it is believed, has largely contributed to preserve the whole country from a serious commercial ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... of the Order, for the membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached 50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... upon the table with hesitation in his face and attitude. He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good deal of wheat to deliver by and bye, and, for prices had fallen steadily until a week or two ago, he could still secure a very desirable margin if he bought ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... the barter prices now established throughout a considerable extent of the Windward Coast; but it is to be observed, they are subject to fluctuation from locality of ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... is buttressed, if not based, upon a resolve to defend the rights of civilisation against militarism, of intellect against brute force. "Brute force shall not rule Florence." Even so, it is only after conflict and fluctuation that he decides to allow Luria's trial to take its course. Puccio, again, the former general of Florence, superseded by Luria, and now serving under his command, turns out not quite the "pale discontented man" whom Browning originally ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... physician Gull as a cretinoid state supervening in the adult life of woman, has an insufficient amount of thyroxin in her blood and tissues. She is clumsy and awkward and will stumble when endeavoring to walk upstairs. Any effort is almost paralyzed because the range of fluctuation of energy, the ability to mobilize energy, in turn dependent upon an ability to increase the metabolic rate, is limited. In slang phrase, she cannot step on it. Her existence is set to go at a rate in the neighborhood of forty ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... vividness, is found to fluctuate periodically, so that in a series of objectively equal stimuli, certain ones, regularly recurring, would be more vividly sensed. This is exemplified in the well-known facts of the fluctuation of the threshold of sensation, of the so-called retinal rivalry, and of the subjective rhythmizing of auditory stimuli, already mentioned. There is a natural rhythm of vividness. Here, therefore, in the very conditions of ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... selected and arranged, the first part of the work to be considered is the orthography, which was long vague and uncertain; which at last, when its fluctuation ceased, was in many cases settled but by accident; and in which, according to your Lordship's observation, there is still great uncertainty among the best criticks; nor is it easy to state a rule by which we may decide between custom and reason, or between the equiponderant authorities ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... country would have had national interests controlling their actions. The Teuton invaders were without power of cohesion, without fraternal affection for each other; their ephemeral territories were in a state of perpetual fluctuation. The bishops locally situated in these changing districts would have been themselves divided. In fact, the Arian bishops had no common centre. They were the nominees and partisans of their several sovereigns. They presented no one front, for their ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... banishment. Wherever this standard is maintained there is at its side in free and unquestioned circulation a volume of silver currency sometimes equaling and sometimes even exceeding it in amount, both maintained at a parity notwithstanding a depreciation or fluctuation in ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... imitating. A change of administration there, Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and die in their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of parliamentary majorities or the rise and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... and suspense, his complexion browned and paled out of its healthful English tints. But this was not because he was weak any longer, or in diminished health. He was worn by incessant travelling, by anxiety and the fluctuation of hope and fear; but the great tension had strung his nerves and strengthened his vitality, though it had worn off every superfluous particle of flesh. A keen anxiety mingled with indignation was in his eyes as he looked ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... statesmen. The Bank is a great establishment which enjoys an independent existence, and the people, accustomed to make and unmake whatsoever it pleases, is startled to meet with this obstacle to its authority. In the midst of the perpetual fluctuation of society the community is irritated by so permanent an institution, and is led to attack it in order to see whether it can be shaken and controlled, like all the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... that they had her within doors to keep things, as she called it, "right and tight;" for abroad the only system in vogue was one of fluctuation and uncertainty. Mr. Rossitur's Irishman, Donohan, staid his year out, doing as little good, and as much, at least, negative harm, as he well could; and then went, leaving them a good deal poorer than he found them. Dr. Gregory's generosity had added to Mr. Rossitur's own small stock of ready ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... consequence of a similar, though not equal mistake. To both, I affirm, that the opinions and arguments, I am about to detail, have been the settled convictions of my mind for the last ten or twelve years, with some brief intervals of fluctuation, and those only in lesser points, and known only to the companions of my fire-side. From both and from all my readers, I solicit a gracious attention to the following explanations: first, on the congruity of the following numbers, with the general plan and object of 'The Friend;' and ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... Gray set the atmosphere motors idling. The dome slid open, showing the flicker of the auroras, where areas of intense heat and cold set up atmospheric tension by rapid fluctuation ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett

... government. But we do not know what opinions would prevail, if the present Dissenters should become masters. They will not tell us their present opinions; and one principle of modern Dissent is, not to discover them. Next, as their religion, is in a continual fluctuation, and is so by principle and in profession, it is impossible for us to know what it will be. If religion only related to the individual, and was a question between God and the conscience, it would not be wise, nor ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... are accustomed to regard money as of constant value, and an honest money must necessarily conform to this belief. If money varies in value, the people are deluded, and many are wronged if they are unaware of the fluctuation. If they become aware of it,—as they generally do by a bitter experience,—they are confronted with an uncertainty that is most detrimental to any business or enterprise. Imagine what our business would be with our measures of weight, length, and capacity all variable! ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... gets your money on the supposition that you are more likely to be wrong than to be right. Of course, if you take the bucket shop's advice you surely are likely to be wrong. Bucket shops get their clients into the very speculative stocks, where there is likely to be a great deal of fluctuation in the price of the stocks, which gives them frequent opportunities to ...
— Successful Stock Speculation • John James Butler

... months, to deliberate how he should grow rich; he sometimes proposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings of India, and sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuation of opinion, sleep insensibly seized him in his chair; he dreamed that he was ranging a desert country in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he stood on the top of a hill shaded with cypress, in doubt whither to direct his steps, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... left the bay on the 19th of September, yet, by the irregularity and fluctuation of the wind in the offing, it was the 22d of that month, in the evening, before we lost sight of Juan Fernandez; after which we continued our course to the eastward, in order to join the Tryal off Valparaiso. Next night the weather proved squally, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... done, should be made free. The Government would then pay the man in Labor-Exchange Script. Of course, if the Government guaranteed the script, it was real money; otherwise, it was wildcat money, subject to fluctuation and depreciation. Very naturally, the Government refused to guarantee this script, or to invest in the co-operative stores. To make the script valuable, it had to be issued in the form of a note, redeemable in gold ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... anything to compare with the places they are hastening to, west or north. The downs! Yes, the downs are there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms resembling vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, "in fluctuation fixed"; a fine country to walk on in fine weather for all those who regard the mere exercise of walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish for something more, these downs may be neglected, since, if downs are wanted, there is the higher, nobler Sussex range within ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... intrusted with the funds of the people deprives the Treasury, without fault or agency of the Government, of the ability to pay its creditors in the currency they have by law a right to demand. This circumstance no fluctuation of commerce could have produced if the public revenue had been collected in the legal currency and kept in that form by the officers of the Treasury. The citizen whose money was in bank receives it back since the suspension at a sacrifice in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... W.W., I get an excellent dinner with a bottle of Offener wine. The wine of Offen resembles much that of Bordeaux in its quality and flavor. The tariff however of the dinners and wines varies daily a few kreutzers, in consequence of the eternal fluctuation of the W.W., so that every morning a fresh tariff is affixed to the wainscot of the saloon where the dinners are served. Supper, served likewise a la carte, is at its full tide between the hours ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... episcopate and to heresy. Further difficulty has been caused by the fact that the epistles of Ignatius appear in three forms or recensions, a longer Greek recension forming a group of thirteen epistles, a short Greek of seven epistles, and a still shorter Syriac version of only three. After much fluctuation of opinion, due to the general reconstruction of the history of the whole period, which has gone through various marked changes, the opinion of scholars has been steadily settling upon the short Greek recension of seven epistles as authentic, especially since ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... our early songs. The task which you propose to me of adapting words to these airs, is by no means easy. The poet who would follow the various sentiments which they express, must feel and understand that rapid fluctuation of spirits, that unaccountable mixture of gloom and levity which composes the character of my countrymen, and has deeply tinged their music. Even in their liveliest strains we find some melancholy note inhere, some minor third or flat seventh which throws ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... were alarmed, and gave their agents orders to buy. Their efforts succeeded. Towards evening confidence was restored, and the stock advanced to seven hundred and fifty. It continued at this price, with some slight fluctuation, until the company closed their books on ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... have, in this great champion of the faith, in this strong runner of the Christian race, in this chief of men, an example of the fluctuation of mood, the variation in the way in which we look at our duties and our obligations and our difficulties, the slackening of the impulse which dominates our lives, that are too familiar to us all. It brings Paul nearer us to feel that he, too, knew ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel;[15] barley averaging at the same time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive; a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being six and eightpence.[16] When the price was above this sum, the merchants might import to bring it down;[17] when it was below this ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... princes of literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by Milton only fourteen pears after his death as the "dear son of memory, great heir to fame,"—"So ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner

... and that no prospectus could be issued except in the case of a concern which had already stood so severe a test that its earning capacity was placed beyond doubt? It would certainly be possible by legislative enactment to make any security that was offered as safe as Consols, and less subject to fluctuation in value. But when this had been done the effect would be very much like the effect upon rabbits of the recent fixing of their price. No more securities ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... exacted with as much strictness as if it were an ordinary tax. Another source of financial gain, which has brought on him still worse reproaches, was his commission against infractions of the law. It was inevitable that in the fluctuation of authority and of the statutes themselves innumerable illegalities should have taken place. And they were still always going on. The King took it especially ill that men omitted to pay the dues ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... discourse With the Musician, on the source Of all the legendary lore Among the nations, scattered wide Like silt and seaweed by the force And fluctuation of the tide; The tale repeated o'er and o'er, With change of place and change of name, Disguised, transformed, and yet the same We've heard a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... and intermixed in so complex a manner with one another, that even supposing their laws known, the computation of the aggregate effect transcends the powers of the calculus as it is, or is likely to be; or, lastly, where the causes themselves are in a state of perpetual fluctuation; as in physiology, and still more, if possible, in the social science. The mathematical solutions of physical questions become progressively more difficult and imperfect, in proportion as the questions divest themselves of their abstract and hypothetical character, and approach ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... sensible and more patriotic to give ten millions in order to unite them. Nobody protested against this remark. If it were repeated to-day there would be a shout of disapprobation. On the other hand we shall not have another proposal to guarantee a colonial railway. This temporary fluctuation in opinion is not the first instance of men cherishing the shadow after they have rid themselves of the substance, and clinging with remarkable ardour to a sentiment after they have made quite sure that it shall ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley

... financial position; this will be apparent from having achieved a government budgetary position without a deficit that is excessive as determined in accordance with Article 104c(6); - the observance of the normal fluctuation margins provided for by the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System, for at least two years, without devaluing against the currency of any other Member State; - the durability of convergence achieved by the Member State and of its participation ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union

... back to Mr. Gilfil's face; he set his teeth and clenched his hands in the effort to repress a burst of indignation. Sir Christopher noticed the flush, but thought it indicated the fluctuation of hope and fear about Caterina. He went on:—'You're too modest by half, Maynard. A fellow who can take a five-barred gate as you can, ought not to be so faint-hearted. If you can't speak to her yourself, leave ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... Highlands, and was used for the reception of stores, to be distributed into the neighbouring posts as occasion might require. Its strength, like that of all others depending for defence on militia, was subject to great fluctuation. As soon as the ice was out of the river, General Howe took advantage of its occasional weakness, to carry on an expedition against it, for the purpose of destroying the stores there deposited, or of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... James was led by the Spirit of God to write that the unstable and unbelieving man is like the "wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." There are two motions of the waves—one up and down, which we call undulation, the other to and fro, which we call fluctuation. How appropriately both are referred to—"tossed" up and down, "driven" to and fro! The double-minded man lacks steadiness in both respects: his faith has no uniformity of experience, for he is now at the crest of the wave and now in the trough of the sea; it has no uniformity ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... from Norway were naturally agitating to King Olaf and, in the fluctuation of events there, his purposes and prospects varied much. He sometimes thought of pilgriming to Jerusalem, and a henceforth exclusively religious life; but for most part his pious thoughts themselves gravitated towards Norway, and a stroke for ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... type, and his apprehensions were increased by the fact that his patient had in her constitution a taint of scrofula. There was no apparent congestion of the veins nor discoloration of the skin around the hard protuberance, no pulsation, elasticity, fluctuation or soreness, only a solid lump which the doctor's sensitive touch recognized as the small section or lobule of a deeply-seated tumor already beginning to press upon and obstruct the blood vessels in its immediate vicinity. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... many civil rights spokesmen and left the Marine Corps open to charges of discrimination. The policy of tying the number of Negroes to the number of available, appropriate slots also meant that the number of black marines, and consequently the acceptability of black volunteers, was subject to chronic fluctuation. More important, it permitted if not encouraged further restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines who had combat training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a segregated service ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... the market as you may agree, slowly, thus preventing any material fluctuation in value," he went on. "How to hold this tremendous reserve secretly and still permit the operation of the other diamond mines of the world is the great problem you will have ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle

... her wishes lead her to remain with us, my husband," replied Mrs. Hamilton, impressively. She had not spoken before, for she had been too attentively observing the fluctuation of Ellen's countenance; but now her tone was such as to check the forced smile with which her niece had tried to reply to Mr. Hamilton's suggestion of becoming old and irritable, and bring the painfully-checked tears back to her eyes, too powerfully to be restrained. ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... uncomfortable excrescences! She felt quite affectionately towards it, as one who has journeyed far may feel towards some old landmark of his youth which he finds unaltered on his return, from wandering in strange lands. The immutability of things, as compared with the constant fluctuation of life and circumstance, struck her poignantly. Here was this rock—cast up from the bowels of the earth thousands of years ago and washed by the waves of a million tides—still unchanged and changeless, while, for her, the face of the whole world had altered ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... were; sore fluctuating labor, as the poor King struggles to his final rest, this morning. He was at the window again, when the WACHT-PARADE (Grenadiers on Guard) turned out; he saw them make their evolutions for the last time. [Pauli, viii. 280.] After which, new relapse, new fluctuation. It was about eleven o'clock, when Cochius was again sent for. The King lay speechless, seemingly still conscious, in bed; Cochius prays with fervor, in a loud tone, that the dying King may hear and join. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... of history is blotted o'er With tales of bloodshed. Not a single nation Exists, but spent its greater life in war. And in each Power's restless fluctuation From might to weakness, and from servitude To might, is shown the ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... weight, then difficulty of breathing from pressure. The abdomen is distended, flattened at the sides unless it is very full. The skin may be stretched tense, superficial veins are distended. The navel may be flat or even protrude and around it the vessels may be greatly enlarged. There is fluctuation when you tap sharply at one side, while holding your hand on the other side you feel ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... prices for their sexes; and infants were generally appraised at about a tenth or an eighth of prime. The average price for slaves of all ages and both sexes, furthermore, was generally about one-half of the price for male prime field hands. The fluctuation of prime prices, therefore, measures the rise and fall of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... slaves would not have detained him, but his brother's death did. We buried the youth, who has been ill three months. Mpamari descended into the grave with four others; a broad cloth was held over them horizontally, and a little fluctuation made, as if to fan those who were depositing the body in the side excavation made at the bottom: when they had finished they pulled in earth, and all shoved it towards them till the grave was level. Mullam then came and poured a little water into and over the grave, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... that the prices of sugar and tin-plate rise and fall together; show how the fruit-crop may cause this fluctuation. ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... receive careful attention. Keep the atmosphere dry with a brisk temperature, admitting a little fresh air at favourable opportunities, to prevent them from being injured by damp. When the heat is kept up by dung linings, constant watching will be necessary to prevent any fluctuation of temperature, having materials at hand to assist in case ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane

... reported, the want of hard money forced itself into notice. Exchange on England rose from 5 per cent. to 10 per cent.; the discount on New Orleans notes, from 3 per cent. became 50 per cent., and on the 4th of December it had fallen back to 4 per cent. What fluctuation! What disasters! ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... their creditors and force them to sell their crops on their creditors' terms. Many farms were heavily mortgaged, too, at rates of interest that ate up the farmers' profits. During and after the Civil War the fluctuation of the currency and the high tariff worked especial hardship on the farmers as producers of staples which must be sold abroad in competition with European products and as consumers of manufactured articles which must be bought at home ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... degree, as in the macrocosm. The spirit has its risings and settings of sun and moon, its seasons, its clouds and stars, its solstices, its tides, its winds, its storms, its earthquakes—infinite vitality in endless fluctuation. To rule these changes, Florimel had neither the power that comes of love, nor the strength that comes of obedience. What of conscience she had was not yet conscience toward God, which is the guide to ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Fluctuation" :   replacement, business cycle, fluctuate, unregularity, permutation, irregularity, substitution, change, undulation, diurnal variation, transposition, wave, alteration, modification, difference, vicissitude, switch, departure, deviation, scintillation, divergence, daily variation



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