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Undulate vs Billow - What's the difference?

undulate | billow |

As verbs the difference between undulate and billow

is that undulate is to cause to move in a wavelike motion while billow is to surge or roll in billows.

As an adjective undulate

is wavy in appearance or form.

As a noun billow is

a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.

undulate

English

Verb

(undulat)
  • To cause to move in a wavelike motion.
  • * Holder
    • Breath vocalized, that is, vibrated and undulated .
  • To cause to resemble a wave
  • To move in wavelike motions.
  • To appear wavelike.

    • See also

    * oscillate

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Wavy in appearance or form.
  • Changing the pitch and volume of one's voice.
  • (botany, of a margin) Winding up and down gradually relative to the blade.

    • billow

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
  • * Cowper
    • whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll
  • * 18?? , :
    • And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.
  • * 1922 , :
    • Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To surge or roll in billows
  • * 1920 , , The Understanding Heart , Chapter II:
    • During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains,
  • To swell out or bulge

    • References