pendulate

English

Verb

pendulate (third-person singular simple present pendulates, present participle pendulating, simple past and past participle pendulated)

1. To swing like a pendulum.
   • 1851 December 20, J.O.N Rutter, John W. Parker, “Maguctoid Currents, their Forces and Directions”, in Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Science, and Art, number 1822, page 897:

     There is an old trick of suspending a shilling by a thread, and causing it to pendulate within a glass , so as to strike its sides , the thread being held between the finger and thumb .

   • 1903, Nature-study, Entomology: Section D: Lepidoptera, page 8:

     Watch a male in fight. He will pendulate over one spot for ten or fifteen minutes , then change his position and pendulate again .

   • 2010, Temel, Turgay, System and Circuit Design for Biologically-Inspired Intelligent Learning, page 7:

     Lungarella and Metta (in Lungarella, M. and Metta, G. 2003) studies the role of changes in the qcquisition of primary motor abilities: learning to pendulate (to swing like a pendulum) or bounce. In the first case the study was conducted with a small-sized humanoid robot that learned to pendulate.

2. To vacillate between states, especially states of arousal and of relaxation.
   • 2012, Peter A. Levine, Healing Trauma:

     What's important to realize is that you can pendulate—swing back and forth—between these sensations of expansion and contraction.

   • 2023, Bret Lyon, Sheila Rubin, Embracing Shame:

     If it stops feeling okay, pendulate to thinking about (or doing) something that feels nurturing for you: it it's available to you, get up and move around, look at a favorite picture or painting, talk to a friend, or pet your dog or cat.

   • 2023, Ida Fatimawati Adi Badiozaman, Voon Mung Ling, Kiran deep Sandhu, Women Practicing Resilience, Self-care and Wellbeing in Academia:

     When we can pendulate between between those vagal states, shift between frozen to connected to withdrawing to integrated, this is the ANS capacity at its best, "mov[ing] between sympathetic and parasympathetic modes in an optimal balance".

Adjective

pendulate (comparative more pendulate, superlative most pendulate)

1. (biology) pendulous.
   • 1967, Kenjiro Fujii, Cytologia, page 447:

     Here the rachis is bent at the point of its origin, and thereby it produces pendulate inflorescence.

   • 2007, Susan L. Woodward, “Modern Vegetation of the Murray Springs Area and the Upper San Pedro Valley”, in Caleb Vance Haynes, Bruce B. Huckell, editor, Murray Springs, page 58:

     Above the lower headcut, phreatophytic mesquite and little leaf sumac hug the banks, drawing pendulate water from the silts remaining from former marsh deposits and sending long taproots into channel stores.

   • 2021, Debashis Mandal, Ursula Wermund, Lop Phavaphutanon, Temperate Fruits: Production, Processing, and Marketing:

     The first group of genotypes demonstrates a pendulate/spreading form, whereas the second group remains upright when the fruits grow on the shoots.

Related terms

• pendulation

Anagrams

• unpetaled, unpleated