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Vicissitude vs Fluctuation - What's the difference?

vicissitude | fluctuation |

As nouns the difference between vicissitude and fluctuation

is that vicissitude is regular change or succession from one thing to another, or one part of a cycle to the next; alternation; mutual succession; interchange while fluctuation is a motion like that of waves; a moving in this and that direction.

vicissitude

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Regular change or succession from one thing to another, or one part of a cycle to the next; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
  • (often, in the plural) a change, especially in one's life or fortunes.
  • * 1667 , , Paradise Lost , vii, 351,
  • And God made.. the Stars, and set them in the firmament of Heaven to illuminate the Earth, and rule the day in their vicissitude ...
  • * 2003 , "US redeployments afoot in Asia", Christian Science Monitor , Nov. 18, Pg. 6.,
  • The vicissitudes of war in Iraq cast a dreary backdrop for Donald Rumsfeld's first visit to Asian military allies since he became US Defense Secretary in 2001.
  • * Seneca
  • Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power.

    Synonyms

    * ups and downs (informal)

    fluctuation

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A motion like that of waves; a moving in this and that direction.
  • the fluctuations of the sea
  • A wavering; unsteadiness.
  • fluctuations of opinion
    fluctuations of prices
  • In medicine, a wave-like motion or undulation of a fluid in a natural or abnormal cavity (e.g. pus in an abscess), which is felt during palpation or percussion.