undulation

/ˌʌndʒəˈleɪʃən/

Other forms: undulations

Undulation is a flowing, up-and-down movement like the motion of waves.

Have you ever looked out over the ocean and watched the water flow up and down in waves? If so, you watched undulation, which is exactly that type of movement. Undulation best applies to waves, but it can also describe similar movements. If dancers are moving in a flowing manner, that's also undulation. The verb form of this word is undulate, and both come from the Latin word for "wave," unda.

Definitions of undulation

1. noun

   wavelike motion; a gentle rising and falling in the manner of waves
   type of:

   motion, movement

   a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something
2. noun

   (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth
   synonyms: wave

   types:

   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

   ripple

   (electronics) an oscillation of small amplitude imposed on top of a steady value

   solitary wave, soliton, soliton wave

   (physics) a quantum of energy or quasiparticle that can be propagated as a traveling wave in nonlinear systems and is neither preceded nor followed by another such disturbance; does not obey the superposition principle and does not dissipate

   air wave

   a sound wave that is transmitted via air

   transient

   (physics) a short-lived oscillation in a system caused by a sudden change of voltage or current or load

   sonic boom

   an explosive sound caused by the shock wave of an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound

   beat

   a single pulsation of an oscillation produced by adding two waves of different frequencies; has a frequency equal to the difference between the two oscillations

   resonance

   a vibration of large amplitude produced by a relatively small vibration near the same frequency of vibration as the natural frequency of the resonating system

   sympathetic vibration

   (physics) vibration produced by resonance

   type of:

   motion, movement

   a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something
3. noun

   an undulating curve
   synonyms: wave

   types:

   sine curve, sinusoid

   the curve of y=sin x

   type of:

   curve, curved shape

   the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes