How to Use vacillate in a Sentence

vacillate

verb
  • She has vacillated on this issue.
  • And Dylan vacillates in that same way.
    — Stuart Miller, Oc Register, 1 June 2026
  • Yet the coalition vacillated over the plan as soon as it was announced.
    — Grant Smith, Fortune, 6 Sep. 2024
  • But Putin seemed to vacillate on his own support for Prigozhin.
    — Anton Troianovski, BostonGlobe.com, 24 June 2023
  • These are the months where the range of drinking demands vacillate daily.
    — Scott Hocker, theweek, 27 Dec. 2024
  • All around, neighbors are vacillating on whether to rebuild or move away.
    — Lizzie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Apr. 2018
  • Trump has vacillated in his public statements on the deal.
    — Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 2026
  • Guys who are paid to tackle bailed, vacillated, waited for a teammate to get there first.
    — Tim Graham, The Athletic, 16 Jan. 2025
  • Trump has just vacillated hardest in Kyiv’s favour.
    — Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Ware has vacillated out of and then into and then out of and now back into the starting lineup.
    — Fred Katz, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2026
  • The caffeine breakdowns can vacillate for other forms of coffee, too.
    — Korin Miller, SELF, 6 Mar. 2019
  • But Aguilera arrived hours late to court, and began to cry while vacillating over the deal.
    — David Ovalle, miamiherald, 19 Jan. 2018
  • The process, at times, has left him vacillating from tears of self-pity to intense anger and severe depression.
    — Phil McCausland, NBC News, 6 Aug. 2023
  • Berry spends the whole film vacillating between hysterics and hugs.
    — Katie Walsh, kansascity, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The lake of my childhood had always vacillated somewhere between a slate blue and the gray found in the seams of an old tennis ball.
    — Robert Moor, New York Times, 23 May 2017
  • Biden’s team has, for months, vacillated between the best message for the candidate.
    — Time, 23 Oct. 2019
  • Trump has vacillated over his objectives for the meeting with Kim.
    — Matt Stiles, latimes.com, 11 June 2018
  • The home quietly vacillates between high-glam and lived-in—a space distinctly her own, designed on her own terms.
    — Lucia Tonelli, ELLE Decor, 26 July 2019
  • Trump vacillated for months on whether to pick Shanahan, officials said.
    — NBC News, 11 June 2019
  • Investors’ conviction on the move vacillated in the days leading up to the meeting.
    — Jeff Cox, CNBC, 18 Sep. 2024
  • Their subterranean seaside stone bunker is awesome, as is the film’s score, which vacillates between free jazz, drone, and psych guitar.
    — Katie Rife, Vulture, 21 June 2024
  • Some dedicate half or whole days to each of their primary processes, but the key is to not vacillate back-and-forth between them.
    — Tim Maurer, Forbes, 11 Apr. 2021
  • With this record, has the idea of expectation changed for you at all in terms of reception or the idea of vacillating between styles or sounds?
    — Steven J. Horowitz, Billboard, 11 Dec. 2017
  • Berry spends the entirety of the film vacillating between hysterics and hugs.
    — Katie Walsh, latimes.com, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Sfiha, ground meat blended with pomegranate molasses and a pantry-ful of spices, vacillates brightly between sweet and sour.
    — Patricia Escárcega, latimes.com, 5 June 2019
  • This means his net approval rating in the last four weeks has vacillated between -14 points and -15 points.
    — Kate Plummer, MSNBC Newsweek, 6 Aug. 2025
  • The viewer sees the world through Luli's eyes, vacillating between who could be her savior and who's the real villain.
    — Kerry Pieri, Harper's BAZAAR, 4 May 2012
  • Washington has been the opposite of vacillating or overly focused on the short term.
    — Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, 6 Dec. 2019
  • Faced with a tough decision, Chiles vacillated.
    — Miami Herald, 31 May 2026
  • Last year, the home vacillated between a rental and a sale multiple times, each time at increasingly higher prices.
    — Degen Pener, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 June 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vacillate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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