Meaning & use
fluctuated wildly
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Meaning
verbintransitive
changed many times by large amounts, going up and down in an uncontrolled way
Grammar: No object is needed; the thing that changes is the subject: Sales fluctuated wildly.
Patterns
- something fluctuated wildly
- prices/numbers fluctuated wildly
- fluctuated wildly between A and B
The price of oil fluctuated wildly last year, sometimes moving ten percent in a single day.
Her mood fluctuated wildly during the weeks before the exam.
Attendance at the club fluctuated wildly between fifty and three hundred people.
Common combinations
- prices fluctuated wildly
- Prices fluctuated wildly after the new tax was announced.
- temperatures fluctuated wildly
- Temperatures fluctuated wildly in the desert, from freezing at night to very hot by noon.
- share prices fluctuated wildly
- Share prices fluctuated wildly while the rumor spread.
- fluctuated wildly between
- The number of visitors fluctuated wildly between summer and winter.
Synonyms and how they differ
- swung
- More informal and often suggests a regular back-and-forth movement, while 'fluctuated wildly' stresses large, unpredictable changes.
- varied
- Neutral and simply means changed or differed; it does not suggest the extreme, uncontrolled movement that 'wildly' adds.
- seesawed
- A lively word for going up and down repeatedly, often used in news writing about prices or opinions.
Opposites
Word family
- fluctuate verb
- The base verb: to change frequently in level or amount.
- fluctuation noun
- An instance of rising and falling: fluctuations in demand.
- fluctuating adjective
- Changing often and not staying steady: fluctuating prices.
Commonly confused: fluctuated wildly or wildly different?
fluctuated wildly vs wildly different
This means completely unlike something else, not changing over time. 'Prices fluctuated wildly' describes movement; 'prices were wildly different' compares two sets of prices.
Practice
The company's profits ______ wildly over the past three years, so analysts stopped making predictions.
Choose one answer.
'Over the past three years' refers to finished time up to now, so the past tense 'fluctuated' is correct. 'Fluctuate' is the base form and needs a helper like 'did'; 'fluctuating' cannot stand alone as the main verb here; 'fluctuation' is a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fluctuated wildly”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.