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Fluctuation   /flˌəktʃuˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Fluctuation

noun
1.
A wave motion.
2.
An instance of change; the rate or magnitude of change.  Synonym: variation.
3.
The quality of being unsteady and subject to changes.  Synonym: wavering.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fluctuation" Quotes from Famous Books



... little while, the affection of his sister, and the beauty and freshness of Sorrento, rendered the mind of Tasso more easy: but his restlessness returned. He feared he had mortally offended the Duke of Ferrara; and, with his wonted fluctuation of purpose, he now wished to be restored to his presence for the very reason he had run away from it. He did not know with what vengeance he might be pursued. He wrote to the duke; but received no answer. The Duchess of Urbino was equally silent. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... are consumed on the farm that have to be purchased each year, and as there is not much fluctuation in the price paid, we may as well settle the per capita rate for the milch cows and hogs for once and all. At each year's end we can then easily find the cash outlay for the herds by multiplying the number of stock by the cost ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... 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 ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... the proceedings of that deposed government for several years back cannot fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages that had prevailed in the state,—and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... in addition to the original duty of 2d. On March 29, 1615, there was a grant to a licensed importer "of the late imposition of 2s. per lb. on tobacco"—which shows that there must have been considerable fluctuation between 1604 and 1615—while in September 1621 the duty stood at 9d. Through James's reign much dissatisfaction was expressed about the importation of Spanish tobacco, and the outcome of this may probably be seen in ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... this test clinically. When, for example, the walls of the abscess are thick and rigid, or when its contents are under excessive tension, the fluid wave cannot be elicited. On the other hand, a sensation closely resembling fluctuation may often be recognised in oedematous tissues, in certain soft, solid tumours such as fatty tumours or vascular sarcomata, in aneurysm, and in a muscle when it is palpated ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... destructive heat ray. This is perhaps the most important single point of value and due to the transparency of the paraffin. Third, the paraffin coating, impervious to air, maintains the sap tension equally in the course of fluctuation between negative and positive pressures occurring between night and day, and under varying conditions of light and temperature. This maintenance of equalised sap tension, I believe to be important. The paraffin is waterproof and prevents evaporation from the scion, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... to the 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 sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings, ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner

... 'whether you did them or no. It is not a question of charm, but of health, 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 ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... 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 they good or bad. [Applause.] So much for the heroic integrity of the so-called ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working at the machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to cause their removal. Such changes of position do however occur; and they have been alluded to by the Committee on the Fluctuation of Manufacturers' Employment, as one of the causes interfering most materially with an uniform rate of wages: it is therefore of particular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the real causes which have driven ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... for a 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 ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... volitions. But the truth is, there was something more in Locke's thoughts and feelings, in the inmost working of his nature, with respect to moral liberty, than there was in his definition. The inconsistency and fluctuation of his views on this all-important subject are fully reflected in ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... two railway lines doing business between the same points. We have fully pointed out the practical working of this sort of competition in the chapter devoted to railways. It is plain that the general effect is a fluctuation of rates between wide limits, an enormous waste of capital and labor, and ultimately, the permanent death of competition by the consolidation of the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... to throw out of a horizontal position by raising one side or end or lowering the other; the words are closely similar, but tilt suggests more of fluctuation or instability. Slant and slope are said of things somewhat fixed or permanent in a position out of the horizontal or perpendicular; the roof slants, the hill slopes. Incline is a more formal word for tip, and also for slant or slope. To cant is ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... leg. There was but very little pus discharged from this opening afterward, not, however, for want of drainage, since the cut was kept open by introducing the probe occasionally. About the 9th or 10th of Feb. fluctuation became quite apparent along the outer and lower part of the thigh. On Feb. 12th, consultation was again had, when fluctuation being very well marked over a considerable portion of the thigh in its lower and middle thirds, after giving the ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox

... 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

... hundred and forty years later, at least in the richer and more important districts of the country. In a pamphlet printed in 1723, one hundred and thirty-seven years after the introduction of the potato, speaking of the fluctuation of the markets, the writer says: "We have always either a glut or a dearth; very often there are not ten days distance between the extremity of the one and the other; such a want of policy is there (in Dublin especially) on the most important affair ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... the countless revolutions which have marked the interval in the manners, habits, and opinions of men. Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that any thing not immutable in its nature could possibly have withstood such continual fluctuation? But how have all these changes affected this visible image of Truth? In no wise; not a jot; and because what is true is independent of opinion: it is the same to us now as it was to the men of the dust of antiquity. The unlearned ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... varying at all in proportion to the demand for the article, but only in proportion to the price of food; the commodities produced being laid up in store to meet sudden demands, and sudden fluctuations in prices prevented:—that gradual and necessary fluctuation only being allowed which is properly consequent on larger or more limited supply of raw material and other natural causes. When there was a visible tendency to produce a glut of any commodity, that tendency should be checked by ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... shifting appears in what is called "fluctuation of attention". Make a light gray smudge on a white sheet of paper, and place this at such a distance that the gray will be barely distinguishable from the white {255} background. Looking steadily at the smudge, you will find it to disappear ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... pressure, to the logarithm of volume I-III is added, first, a logarithmic factor for the temperature recorded for the calorimeter to correct the volume of air to standard temperature. As the temperature fluctuations are all within 1 degree, a table has been prepared giving the standard fluctuation represented by ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... of ready money, remains long 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... 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 ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... there is pause and fluctuation; but, for Maillard, no return. He persuades his Menads, clamorous for arms and the Arsenal, that no arms are in the Arsenal; that an unarmed attitude, and petition to a National Assembly, will be the best: he hastily nominates or sanctions ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... would follow. You have to teach these poor people how to spend money: you have to give them the opportunities of doing so to advantage: you have to provide a system of education which shall not vary with every fluctuation of trade: and to adopt such methods of working as shall make the least possible disturbance of domestic ties. No sudden influx of money will do all these things. In fact, whatever part of this subject one takes up, one is perpetually ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... of Kansas argued "that the public debt is payable in silver, and if the money unit should be established in the metal least subject to fluctuation that metal is silver. Gold is the money of monarchs, and was in open alliance with our enemies in the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... seasons of scarcity, and the fluctuation of prices, might suggest a reasonable distrust of the excellence of the husbandry under this reign. [84] The turbulent condition of the country may account for this pretty fairly during the early part of it. Indeed, a neglect of agriculture, to the extent implied by these circumstances, is wholly ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... with his father, and the real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, was that now he repented and wanted to follow Cardinal to Cambridge, and—a year lost—go on with science again. He felt it was a discreditable fluctuation; he knew it would be a considerable expense; and so he took two weeks before he could screw himself up ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... objection may seem plausible, yet its force will be found to depend entirely on the rate of fluctuation which we suppose to prevail in the animal world, and on the proportions which such conspicuous subjects of the animal and vegetable kingdoms bear to those which are less known and escape our observation. There are perhaps more than a million species of plants and animals, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... 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 me to ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish me before I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in prosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and change with every fluctuation that may interrupt our happiness—like the politician who runs the political gantlet for office one day, and the next day, because the horizon is darkened a little, he is seen running for his life, for ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had heard nothing of him. There were three different conclusions to be drawn from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of them at times being held the most probable. Either his going had been again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of seeing Miss Crawford alone, or he was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... 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 manufacturing East against the agricultural West and South rather ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... put them on 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 ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle

... the government officers' homes were off the island, too, but this commuting did not cause any great fluctuation of the island's population. A city that governs a planet must operate at full capacity twenty-four hours a day, and there was a "rush hour" every three hours as the ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... devotion to religion; and his signal successes have been in the line of economics. He believes in Free Trade as the gospel of social salvation. He revels in figures; he has price, value, consumption, distribution, import, export, fluctuation, all at his tongue's end, ready to hurl at any one who ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... Community. 13. No limits to the possibility of individual Saving—Clash of individual and social interests in Saving. 14. Objection that excess in forms of Capital would drive interests to zero not valid. 15. Excess is in embodiments of Capital, not in real Capital. 16. Uncontrolled Machinery a source of fluctuation. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... 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 was on him; ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... which send men into the world skilled in the machinery of statecraft and with minds sharpened to the immediate demands of special groups, but with no genuine training of the imagination and no understanding of the longer problems of humanity, with no hold on the past, "amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre their thoughts, to ballast their conduct, to preserve them from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine." It will set itself against any regular ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... philosophy has never withered in Germany. It cannot even be said that its fortunes have retrograded: they have oscillated: accidents of taste and ability in particular professors, or caprices of fashion, have given a momentary fluctuation to this or that new form of Kantianism,—an ascendency, for a period, to various, and, in some respects, conflicting, modifications of the transcendental system; but all alike have derived their power mediately from Kant. No weapons, even if employed ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... sufficient apology. I cannot yet give any certain account of Bess, or form a rational conjecture with respect to the termination of her disorder. She has not had a violent fit of frenzy since I saw you, but her mind is in a most unsettled state, and attending to the constant fluctuation of it is far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her unconnectedly something ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... body bring changes of interest and there is no guarantee of fixity so far as numbers are concerned. It is the ideal of the Central Associations to have the classes sustained each year with an increased efficiency, but all of the institutions testify to the fluctuation caused by the human element in the problem. These courses are mostly mapped out, even to the assigning of specific texts by accepted authors, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... holding was unaffected by enclosure, the loss of domestic industries rendered him less able to pay his rent: if it was to be enclosed, he found himself with a diminished income at the very time when he most needed money; and if he managed to keep his land for a while, he was ruined by some violent fluctuation in the price of corn. Sooner or later he sank into the labouring class. The enormous profits of the large farmers did not continue, for about 1780 rents began to rise. Still the cultivation of good arable land remained highly profitable, if the farmer had capital enough to meet fluctuations of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... This fluctuation of the imagination will take place in the same way if the imagination is dealing with things which we contemplate in the same way with reference to past or present time, and consequently we imagine things related to time past, present, or ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... hearte was so conspicuous, and without the least temptation of any corrupt end, and the innocence and candour of his nature so evident and without any perversenesse, that all who knew him cleerely decerned, that all those restlesse motions and fluctuation proceeded only from the warmth and jealosy of his owne thoughts, in a to nice inquisition for truth: nether the bookes of the Adversary, nor any of ther persons, though he was acquainted with the best of both, had ever made greate impression ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... purpose he employed old Tom Bish, the Stockbroker, to purchase stock for the amount; but owing to a sudden fluctuation in the market, a considerable depreciation took place between the time of purchase and that of payment; a circumstance which made the Chevalier grin and show his teeth: Determining however, not to become a victim to the fangs of Bulls and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of an id, as I conceive it, is in a state of continual fluctuation upwards and downwards. In most cases the fluctuations will counteract one another, because the passive streams of nutriment soon change, but in many cases the limit from which a return is possible will be passed, and then the determinants concerned will continue to vary in the ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... scholarship, and though we would by no means disguise the fact of its somewhat chaotic character, yet we do not hesitate to affirm that, in spite of the conflict of the opinions of different scholars, and in spite of the fluctuation of systems apparently opposed to each other, progress may be reported, and a firm hope expressed that the essential doctrines of one of the earliest forms of religion may in time be recovered and placed before us in their ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... his children there was no persecution, no fluctuation of religion: their Ministers shifted their faith four times, and were sincere honest men! There was no servility, no flattery, no contempt of the nation abroad, under James I. No tyranny under Charles I. and Laud; no factions, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... its 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

... 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. Whether it were fibrous or albuminous, "benignant" ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... the inquisitive gaze of the bystanders; and his companion observing the fluctuation of his countenance, added, as the door was ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... infallible test as to whether any such movement is of man without God, or of God within the man, is the following life; only a large space for fluctuation must be allowed where a whole world of passions and habits has to be subjected to the will of God through the vice regency of a human will hardly or only just awakened, and as yet unconscious ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... of this stormy light Jaime contemplated the fluctuation of the waters at his feet, hurling their boisterous swirls into the hollows of the rock, roaring and writhing, frothing with anger in the winding passages between the reefs. In the depths of this greenish mass, illuminated by the setting sun with transparencies ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... bereft of all dignity, all steadfastness. The slave of every impulse; blown about by the predominant gale; a scene of eternal fluctuation. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... connected, as it is, with this topic, I may be permitted to repeat here the statement made in my letter of acceptance, that in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency, with its fluctuation of values, is one of the greatest obstacles to a return to prosperous times. The only safe paper currency is one which rests upon a coin basis and is at all times ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... my dearest Matilda, with abatement in friendship or fluctuation in affection? Is it possible for me to forget that you are the chosen of my heart, in whose faithful bosom I have deposited every feeling which your poor Julia dares to acknowledge to herself? And you do me equal injustice in upbraiding me with exchanging your friendship for that of Lucy Bertram. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... to complete recovery, or the malady may subside into a subacute and chronic form with induration. Matter (abscess) may be recognized by the presence of a soft spot, where pressure with two fingers will detect fluctuation from one to the other. When there is liquid exudation into the scrotum, or sac, fluctuation may also be felt, but the liquid can be made out to be around the testicle and can be pressed up into the abdomen through the inguinal canal. When abscess occurs in the cord the matter ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... of hope and expectation about it," said one of the men, "that kind of stirs and warms a body. And when you come to count lost time, and fluctuation in wages, it makes a pretty even thing, after all! In '73 I worked in a shoddy-mill that had been making money hand over fist,—eleven hours a day,—not a man of us made more than five dollars a week. Some poor fellows with families earned only ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... residence of the officer commanding in the 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, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the benefit that he was to him even when he was most ridiculous. Since that, he says, the change has been striking, though so gradual. Louis has all the same freshness and energy, but without the fluctuation and impetuosity. And his example of humility and sincerity has worked, not only in reclaiming the wild outlying people, but even awakening the comfortable dependents from their self-satisfaction. Even Frampton is far from the impenetrable person he ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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, who is acquainted with the Nature and Qualities of the Air, and knows ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge

... in terms of price stability; - the sustainability of the government 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 ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union

... and such of their letters as have chanced to come down to us show what a minute account of even the most trifling occurrences was required of them by the central authorities. They were not only obliged to report any fluctuation in the temper or attitude of their subordinates, or any intrigues that were being entered into across the frontier; they had also to record the transfer of troops, the return of fugitives, the pursuit of deserters, any chance scuffle between soldiers ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the ideal life we had yearned for. The same objects every day in our walks—the same objects every moment to look out upon from our windows—the same faces, few or none, on the desolate sands—the very same sky, with hardly any variation, although the slightest fluctuation in the points of the wind, or the current of the clouds, produced a sensation! It suited us at first, for we had no space in our thoughts for external objects, and the total absence of all excitement threw us more in upon ourselves. But even ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... 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 excite to an ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... bishops of each 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 ...
— 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

... 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? I have not gone ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... conversion being, add one-ninth to sterling to obtain currency, and deduct one tenth from currency to find the sterling. This was called the par of exchange, and was so then. So long as it continued correct, fluctuations were from a trifle above, to a trifle below par, and this fluctuation was a real premium or discount, governed by the cost of the transportation of bullion from the one to the other side of the Atlantic, an expense which now does not exceed, and rarely equals, 2 per cent. 4 shilling 6 pence has long ceased to be the value of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... business whatever transacted during last week, and even the duty remains without fluctuation. In this state of inactivity the effects of the Metropolitan Total Abstinence movement was a topic of interest to the trade. As it appears that nearly 70,000 persons took the pledge, the consumption of malt liquor must seriously diminished, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... 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 not ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat

... The great fluctuation of the streams makes fishing an uncertain occupation; yet at least a dozen varieties of fish are known, and enough are taken to add ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... 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 sell out ...
— Successful Stock Speculation • John James Butler

... alludes to such fluctuation is, however, evident, from what that fanciful but deeply-read man says, immediately after: "We have seen some states which have spent their vigour at their commencement. Some have [end of page vii] blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. The meridian ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... the burner inlets, the gaseous mixture contains a higher percentage of oxygen than is suited to the size and design of the burner, so that flashing back to the injector jets is imminent at any moment, and may be determined by the slightest fluctuation in pressure—if, indeed, the flame will remain at the proper spot for combustion at all. Thirdly, the fact that the acetylene which is to be consumed under the mantle must be most rigorously purified from phosphorus compounds has been mentioned ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... from Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if it ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... over all your letters consecutively, and I do not feel that I have thanked you half enough for the extreme pleasure which they have given me, and for their utility. I see in them evidence of fluctuation in the degree of credence you give to the theory; nor am I at all surprised at this, for many and many ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... Boabdil, most truly called the Unfortunate, held a diminished and feeble court in the maritime city of Almeria. He retained little more than the name of king, and was supported in even this shadow of royalty by the countenance and treasures of the Castilian sovereigns. Still he trusted that in the fluctuation of events the inconstant nation might once more return to his standard and replace him on the throne ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... the 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 ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... {162} which the varying conditions of the environment cause it to fluctuate. Each of these strains is termed a PURE LINE. If we imagine that there are three such pure lines in our imaginary case, with average weights 10, 12, 14 grains respectively, and if the range of fluctuation of each of these pure lines is 12 grains, then our curve must be represented as made up ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... boat continued to 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 ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott

... tides, although as the coasts waste away and alter in shape, the height to which the tides rise and fall is always varying, and the level of high tide at any given point may, in the course of many ages, differ by several feet or even fathoms. It is this fluctuation in the height of the tides, and the erosion and destruction of the sea-coast by the waves, that makes it exceedingly difficult for us in a few centuries, or even perhaps in a few thousand years, to determine whether ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... to Bentham, is an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally merchandise," resumed the president; "allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing at another, the courts decide—ah! how stupid I am, I beg your pardon—I am inclined to think you could buy up your brother's debts for ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... Delvile, but what now, to her, was either her defence or accusation? She had solemnly renounced all further intercourse with her, she had declared against writing again, and prohibited her letters: and, therefore, after much fluctuation of opinion, her delicacy concurred with her judgment, to conclude it would be most proper, in a situation so intricate, to leave the matter to chance, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... 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

... 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 ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... 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 a particular change without ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... paling. His face was sharp and thin with illness, with eagerness 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 across the gate which the ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... both sides; you could see them lying—covered by the snow and raising it into mounds with the thick wood of which they were made—upon the paths, somewhat trampled in the centre, that skirted the two long files. The broken ranks undulated with the fluctuation of a multitude, the disorder and wavering course of a long march. The black crosses with their arms outstretched assumed the appearance of ghosts and persons in distress. The two disorderly columns made one think of a human panic, a desperate, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... this secular fluctuation of the constellation figures is not without keen interest for the meditative observer. It is another reminder of the swift mutability of terrestial affairs. To the passing glance, which is all that we can bestow upon these figures, they appear so immutable that they have been called ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... into a type of manhood "in its passionate desires and ideal aspirations"—the Faust of Goethe. All the magnificent energy of our ideal man is brought forward in the poet's conception, but it is an energy which is shattered in its fluctuation between sensual delights and ideal aspirations, respectively typified in the Venus and Elizabeth of the play. Here is the contradiction against which he was shattered as the heroes of Greek tragedy were shattered on the rock of implacable Fate. But the transcendent ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... 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 revulsion, ...
— 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

... give up the Union and much doubt as to whether secession was really wise; there was in the North among those who then made themselves heard no doubt whatever as to the loyalty due to the Union, but there was, apart from previous differences about slavery, every possible variety and fluctuation of opinion as to the right way of dealing with States which should secede or rebel. In certain border States, few in number but likely to play an important part in civil war, Northern and Southern elements were mingled. Amid loud and distracted discussion, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... precautionary measures; he raises the price of grains. The manufacturer does the same with his products. The reaction comes, and, after some fluctuation, the farm-rent—which the tenant thought to put upon the manufacturer's shoulders—becomes nearly balanced. So that, while he is congratulating himself upon his success, he finds himself again impoverished, but to an extent somewhat ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... struggle for existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their geographical nature constitute independent political units, easily detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to the momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened that the arrival of the Goeben and Breslau at the Dardanelles in August 1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning the Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population, but their respective geographical ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... American camp, and the discontent of the troops, gradually increasing, was matured into a dangerous spirit of insubordination. The men, indeed, bore incredible hardships and privations with unexampled fortitude and patience, but the army was in a state of constant fluctuation; it was composed, in a great measure, of militia harassed by perpetual service and obliged to neglect the cultivation of their farms and their private interests in order to obey the calls of public duty, and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... equation" is a fluctuation introduced into the other perturbations by reason of the varying distance of the disturbing body, the sun, at different seasons of the year. Its magnitude plainly depends simply on the excentricity of the ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... elegantly expoundeth the ancient fable of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling) to be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the conversion is accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an Atlas or axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation, which is like to a perpetual peril of falling. Therefore men did hasten to set down some principles about which the variety ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... Detroit are procured from St. Clair River, Black River, Mill Creek and, Belle River. As a large share of that sold here has been on contract, there has been no great fluctuation in the market at this point. On the first of July the rates by the cargo were $25a$26 for clear and $19a$20 for second clear; on the first of October, $24 for clear, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... modified itself through long experience, only those of the thinking habit realise that at any moment the testing—the marking with deep scores may begin or has perhaps begun already. At eighteen or twenty a fluctuation of flower-petal tint which may mean an imperfect night can signify no really important cause. What could eighteen or twenty have found to think about in night watches? But in its centre of the world as it stands on the stage with the curtain ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that country, and which, he declares, only political baseness can prevent us from 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... Duplicity also is something resulting from lust, just as inconstancy is, if by duplicity we understand fluctuation of the mind from one thing to another. Hence Terence says (Eunuch. act 1, sc. 1) that "love leads to war, and likewise to peace ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... the state and the interests of the people. Her majesty is desirous that you should consider the laws which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for you to determine whether these laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuation of supply—whether they do not embarrass trade, derange the currency, and by their operation diminish the comfort and increase the privations of the great body of the community." In the house of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... only 0.3 per cent. Most of this difference is represented by the increased efficiency of the filters in summer, and only a little of it by the increased efficiency of settling. With bacteria, on the other hand, the seasonal fluctuation of the plant as a whole is comparatively small, but the settling and storage processes are much more efficient in summer than in winter, the filters being apparently less efficient. The writer believes that they are only apparently less efficient, and ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy

... Lebanon to procure the timber. It is evident that Wenamon was no traveller, and we may perhaps be permitted to picture him as a rather portly gentleman of middle age, not wanting either in energy or pluck, but given, like some of his countrymen, to a fluctuation of the emotions which would jump him from smiles to tears, from hope to despair, in a manner amazing to any but an Egyptian. To us he often appears as an overgrown baby, and his misfortunes have a farcical nature which makes its appeal as much through the medium ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... Swellings of the parotid Glands appeared, we endeavoured to bring them forward to Suppuration, by the Application of emollient Cataplasms, or of gummous Plaisters; and had them opened as soon as a Fluctuation of Matter was to be felt, and afterwards treated them as common Abscesses. Riverius[19] very justly observes, that when such Tumours encrease in such a Manner as to endanger Suffocation, they ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... half florins 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 of eight and ten o'clock; and as Vienna ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... after a fashion. Change there must be, and fluctuation of feeling. But there is such a thing as 'peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation.' You may remember the attempt that was made some years ago to build a steamer in which the central saloon ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... opinions did not fluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin considered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. Certainly those who read Mr. Darwin's own works attentively will find no lack of fluctuation in his case; and reflection will show them that a theory of evolution which relies mainly on the accumulation of accidental variations comes very close to not entering upon the causes or means of the ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... observed, 'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' BURNEY. Hawkins (Life, p. 231) says that 'Mr. Dyer had contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of desperate fortunes, who were dealers in India stock, at a time when the affairs of the company were in a state of fluctuation.' Malone, commenting on this passage, says that 'under these words Mr. Burke is darkly alluded to, together with his cousin.' He adds that the character given of Dyer by Hawkins 'is discoloured by the malignant prejudices ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the price of the sovereign will be simply the mint value of the gold contained in the sovereign. But between no two countries does such a condition exist—take any two, and the amount of the obligation of one to the other changes every day, which causes a continuous fluctuation in the exchange rate—sometimes up from the ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher

... stranger throughout than the fluctuation of the guests. At times they have dwindled to so small a number that one must reckon chiefly upon their quality for consolation; at other times they swelled to such a tide as to overflow the table, long or short, at dinner, and eddy round a second ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a week part of the needle came away. He did not rest as he was enjoined to do, and, in consequence, severe inflammation came on, and in two days time, fluctuation was perceived over the joint, opposite to the puncture; a free incision was made, and some ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... a lying in, had pain on one side of her loins, which extended to the internal part of the thigh on the same side. No fluctuation of matter could be felt; she became hectic with copious night-sweats, and occasional diarrhoea, for four or five weeks; and recovered by, I suppose, the total absorption of the matter, and the reunion of the walls of the abscess. See Class II. 1. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... rather widespread in the less sophisticated part of the population. In other strata, social and financial criteria of selection hold much importance. As a family ascends in economic position, its standards of sexual selection are likely to change. And in large sections of the population, there is a fluctuation in the standards from generation to generation. There is reason to suspect that the standards of sexual selection among educated young women in the United States to-day are higher than they were a quarter of a ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... organizations of an advancing and triumphant civilization. And herein appears a glimpse of the political mission of the American Union, destined itself to become still more comprehensive in the inevitable fluctuation and change of the political elements. It is a hackneyed theme that all the natural features of our country, its mountains, rivers, valleys, lakes, are on a grand scale; it is, therefore, meet that we should lead the civilized world in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... knowledge 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 ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... his existence ashore, he was amazed at the desperate immovability of everything. The world was made up of revolting rigidity and solidity. He felt almost nauseated at seeing all his possessions remain just where he left them, without the slightest fluctuation, or the least bit ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... such as a man of delicacy would like to hear from his sister or his wife. They were nevertheless highly applauded by all the audience, except by Godfrey, who remained silent behind the young lady. In the fluctuation of the crowd he was pressed nearer and nearer to her chair. As she finished singing a fashionable air, she heard a sigh from ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth



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