ppl. a. [f. prec.]
1. Of persons: Given to vacillation.
a. 1814. Wordsw., Excurs., IV. 309. The bad Have fairly earned a victory o’er … The vacillating, inconsistent good.
1844. Mem. Babylonian Princ., II. 57. This vacillating man … wrote a second time.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 86. The vacillating sinner,… impelled by his sufferings, yet presenting a passive resistance.
1872. Yeats, Growth Comm., 232. The vacillating monarch restored the fishing privilege.
2. Of conduct, etc.: Marked by vacillation.
1828. D’Israeli, Chas. I., II. v. 132. [The] address … throws a clear and steady light on the vacillating conduct of Charles the First.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. iii. 255. Very unwillingly … he was compelled to act his vacillating part to England.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, xli. The vacillating expression of a mind unable to concentrate itself strongly.
3. Of things: a. Varying, changeful. b. Unsteady, swaying.
1822. Scott, Peveril, i. Following the vacillating and unhappy fortunes of his master.
a. 1827. M‘Arthur, in Good, Study Med. (1829), II. 180. Pulse quick, generally full and strong, in some cases quick, low, and vacillating.
1834. Lytton, Pompeii, IV. v. He … rushed with swift but vacillating steps down the starlit streets.
Hence Vacillatingly adv.
1836. [F. M. Reynolds], The Parricide, I. 118. He had clung to the bucket, which he had overtaken in his more rapid descent, and was suspended vacillatingly, only a few yards beneath the spot whereon I stood.
a. 1849. Poe, Marginalia, Wks. 1864, III. 565. He has made successful and frequent incursions, although vacillatingly, into the domain of the true Imagination.
