UNDULATION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does undulation mean? 

• UNDULATION (noun)
  The noun UNDULATION has 3 senses:

1. an undulating curve

2. wavelike motion; a gentle rising and falling in the manner of waves

3. (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth

  Familiarity information: UNDULATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNDULATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An undulating curve

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

undulation; wave

Hypernyms ("undulation" is a kind of...):

curve; curved shape (the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "undulation"):

sine curve; sinusoid (the curve of y=sin x)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Wavelike motion; a gentle rising and falling in the manner of waves

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("undulation" is a kind of...):

motion; movement (a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something)

Derivation:

undulate (move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(physics) a movement up and down or back and forth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

undulation; wave

Hypernyms ("undulation" is a kind of...):

motion; movement (a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something)

Domain category:

natural philosophy; physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "undulation"):

gravitation wave; gravity wave ((physics) a wave that is hypothesized to propagate gravity and to travel at the speed of light)

sine wave (a wave whose waveform resembles a sine curve)

oscillation; vibration ((physics) a regular periodic variation in value about a mean)

fluctuation (a wave motion)

seiche (a wave on the surface of a lake or landlocked bay; caused by atmospheric or seismic disturbances)

standing wave; stationary wave (a wave (as a sound wave in a chamber or an electromagnetic wave in a transmission line) in which the ratio of its instantaneous amplitude at one point to that at any other point does not vary with time)

traveling wave; travelling wave (a wave in which the medium moves in the direction of propagation of the wave)

acoustic wave; sound wave ((acoustics) a wave that transmits sound)

wave form; wave shape; waveform (the shape of a wave illustrated graphically by plotting the values of the period quantity against time)

blast wave; shock wave (a region of high pressure travelling through a gas at a high velocity)

impulse; pulsation; pulse; pulsing ((electronics) a sharp transient wave in the normal electrical state (or a series of such transients))

flap; flapping; flutter; fluttering (the motion made by flapping up and down)

Derivation:

undulate (move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion)

 Context examples 

I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)