How to Use oscillator in a Sentence

oscillator

noun
Definition of oscillatornext
  • The fly represents the oscillator, the part that controls the pitch.
    — Andrew Moseman, Popular Mechanics, 24 Aug. 2015
  • The cleaner works with an oscillator that'll move it back and forth, causing the cleaner to cover the bottom of the pool and pick up grime.
    — Veronica Graham, Better Homes & Gardens, 18 Sep. 2022
  • But that’s in essence what the teams of Gröblacher and Sillanpää have achieved with their tiny oscillators.
    — Quanta Magazine, 25 June 2018
  • The cell is almost a perfect oscillator: The electric potential of a cell membrane goes up and down in a smooth rhythm.
    — Kat McGowan, Discover Magazine, 1 Mar. 2012
  • The gadget, about the size of a toaster, uses charged mercury ions to keep its quartz oscillator true, and loses only about one nanosecond over four days.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 26 June 2019
  • Well, an oscillator, like a swing, has a frequency that is given by its construction: the mass and length of the rope set a preferred frequency.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 7 Aug. 2018
  • In an atomic clock, the frequency of the quartz oscillator is fine tuned to match the energy needed to pop electrons to a new energy level.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 26 June 2019
  • So, Burt says, atomic clocks pair an oscillator with a collection of atoms to help keep that frequency stable.
    — Katrina Miller, Wired, 19 Oct. 2021
  • This watch features a rose gold metal casing and moving glitter pieces as well as a quartz oscillator and three hands to keep track of time as precisely as possible.
    — Courtney Campbell, USA TODAY, 23 Mar. 2021
  • What is the source of the Entity FX that the sound team created using oscillators, filters and modulators?
    — Craigh Barboza, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Feb. 2024
  • This change is then picked up by a second device called a ring oscillator, which converts voltage changes into a string of electrical pulses.
    — Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 31 May 2018
  • One beam gets reflected off a component known as an oscillator, and any movement of the oscillator changes the distance the light travels on its way to a detector.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 26 Apr. 2023
  • At the heart of the team’s p-bit is a component called an optical parametric oscillator (OPO), which is essentially a pair of mirrors that bounce light back and forth between them.
    — Edd Gent, IEEE Spectrum, 19 July 2023
  • But assembly requires only the ability to push a 4-pin oscillator crystal into a socket the right way around.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 27 Aug. 2013
  • And there's a reading based on the stochastic oscillator that is an actual overbought reading.
    — Steven Ehrlich, Forbes, 2 May 2022
  • No child with CF had successfully come off an oscillator, doctors told her parents.
    — Jessica Ravitz, CNN, 5 July 2017
  • Here is an example of the stochastic oscillator using ether (ETH).
    — Steven Ehrlich, Forbes, 2 May 2022
  • In an optical lattice atomic clock, a type of atomic clock that’s still being developed and perfected, atoms act as the oscillator.
    — Chelsea Gohd, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2018
  • One of these tiny simple harmonic oscillators, sort of like this tiny pendulum, existing at every point in space.
    — Steven Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, 26 July 2023
  • Back in 2008, Hasty and his team created an oscillator for single cells that could be set to temperature or chemical triggers.
    — Andrew Moseman, Discover Magazine, 22 Jan. 2010
  • Atomic clocks, like every other kind, start with an oscillator: something that vibrates.
    — Katrina Miller, Wired, 19 Oct. 2021
  • Our guess is that a MEMS oscillator used to generate a clock signal for the phones is misbehaving after exposure to helium, hence the system-wide failure.
    — Peter Bright, Ars Technica, 31 Oct. 2018
  • Its 12-voice engine offers two oscillators per voice, a 32-step sequencer and four envelopes to deliver authentic, true analog grit.
    — Popular Science, 26 May 2020
  • On a watch, the traditional oscillator has over 30 parts including a balance wheel and a balance spring, which contribute to a watch’s accuracy through a back-and-forth rotation.
    — Michael Clerizo, WSJ, 31 July 2018
  • For now, the Nasdaq 100 chart suggests the rally is overheated based on standard technical oscillators regardless of the daily, monthly, or weekly time frame.
    — Moneyshow, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Like the heartbeat of a human, timing technologies such as oscillators and clock chips are fundamental building blocks of complex circuits, systems and networks.
    — Dave Altavilla, Forbes, 14 Feb. 2024
  • Where each horizontal and vertical oscillator meet is a weighted connection representing the strength of the link between two spins.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 23 Sep. 2023
  • The plans called for a 478-key keyboard, an analog synthesizer, a bank of oscillators, and an impossibly intricate series of circuits between them.
    — Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 19 Dec. 2023
  • The goal is to put the oscillator in a quantum superposition of two vibration modes, and then see whether gravity destabilizes the superposition.
    — Quanta Magazine, 31 Oct. 2013
  • Beyond just building a more accurate timepiece, using an oscillator instead of a balance spring means less moving parts, which means less wear and no required lubrication.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 14 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'oscillator.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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