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Glite Dictionary
💓 To beat regularly 📡 To send bursts
to pulsate

to pulsate

1 7.0
To send short bursts of energy at regular times
  • verb
  • /ˈpʌlˌseɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : emitir pulsos
  • They were first discovered as sources of pulsating radio waves known as pulsars.
  • pulsating electric field
  • pulsating pain

Examples

  • So the switch pulsates between carrying some big current and carrying zero, OK.

  • All day, bobwhites whistled; at dusk, the whippoorwills pulsated messages from the pines behind the house.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • That blue light seems to pulsate.

    Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)

  • And then it just, it pulsates at random times.

  • I'm sure it had as many as 20 pulsating red lights, one white light in the front of it.

    The Fourth Kind (2009)

  • OK, So I have this pulsating waveform here.

  • The lights in the club pulsated to the rhythm of the music.

  • The radio signal pulsates, allowing different frequencies to be transmitted clearly.

  • He could feel the machine pulsating as it transmitted data at high speed.

Synonyms

to pulse
vsto pulsate
  • Specialized
12 8.2

To make electrical or light signals in short bursts

is the technical term for signals or equipment that produce such bursts

How Pulsed

to pulsate
  • Specialized
1 7.0
to pulse
  • Specialized
12 8.2
to burst
115 1.9

Surface Forms

pulsate infinitive
pulsated past
pulsated past participle
pulsating present participle
pulsates third person singular

Morphology

pulsate = pulse (transparent) = pulse + ate

The technical sense 'produce or transmit in pulses' is a direct extension of the noun 'pulse' via the verb-forming suffix '-ate'.

Etymology

Pulsate comes from the Latin verb pulsare, which means 'to beat' and is the same root as the English word pulse. In technology, think of a device 'beating' energy in short bursts, so to pulsate a signal is to send regular pulses of energy.