ˈundulating, ppl. a.
[f. undulate v.]
1. Moving after the manner of waves; rising and falling in (or like) waves.
| 1711 Pope Temple Fame 446 Thro' undulating air the sounds are sent. 1758 Reid tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 268 From these cracks will issue undulating flames. 1816 Sir H. Douglas Milit. Bridges 70 The intervals must be considerable, and the balks be laid from boat to boat only, to admit of an undulating motion. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. I. 12 To watch the gently undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes. a 1874 in Coues Birds N.W. 113 Its flight is in undulating lines, like the Crossbill's. |
b. transf. Of sounds.
| 1700 Dryden Ovid's Met. xii. 60 Whence all Things..thither bring their Undulating Sound. 1712 Blackmore Creation vii. 101 Mark how the spirits..Seize undulating sounds, and catch the vocal air. 1844 Kinglake Eothen i. 6 Those well-undulating tones [of speech] which belong to the best Osmanlees. |
c. fig. Exhibiting variations comparable to the rising and falling of waves.
| 1815 Bentham Springs of Action Wks. 1843 II. 202 The maintenance of discipline among the undulating and tumultuous multitude. 1849 De Morgan Trigonometry & Double Algebra 1 Trigonometry contains the science of continually undulating magnitude. 1898 P. Manson Trop. Diseases x. 182 Those cases [of Malta Fever] with well-marked waves of fever he calls ‘undulating’. |
2. Forming a series of wave-like curves.
| 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Muscle, The Fibres..contract themselves into a wavy undulating kind of Surface. 1799 Kirwan Geol. Ess. 369 The strata are parallel to each other, horizontal or undulating. 1846 Ellis Elgin Marb. II. 23 The undulating flow given to every part of the drapery. 1884 Bower & Scott De Bary's Phaner. 366 The endodermis..only differs..in the undulating bands on its radial walls. |
b. Of grounds, hills, etc.: Presenting a succession of gently rounded heights and hollows.
| 1794 Piozzi Synon. II. 353 The wavy corn floats very beautifully upon the undulating downs. 1815 Elphinstone Acc. Caubul iii. i. 351 It is an undulating plain, about twenty-five miles long. 1832 G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 451 The luxuriance of the region, into whose leafy and beautifully undulating bosom we were now to be immerged. 1873 J. O. Brookfield Not a Heroine II. 162 Soft, undulating distant hills. |
Hence ˈundulatingly adv.
| 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 85 In some places it was dark grey, and undulatingly slaty. 1835 Blackw. Mag. XXXVII. 341 The..line of the sky, that..plays undulatingly from and into the..deeper tones of the river's visible bed. |