only 1 use
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Definition
to change one's mind back and forth between conflicting ideas
or:
to sway back and forth
or:
to sway back and forth
- It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.Chapters 73-75 — Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; The Sperm Whale's Head, The Right Whale's Head (61% in)
There are no more uses of "vacillate" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)