Other forms: fluctuations
A fluctuation is an up-and-down movement around an average. Price fluctuations, seasonal fluctuation, wild fluctuations.
It implies variation around a stable level rather than a trend going somewhere, which is the distinction that matters in every argument about data: a fluctuation is noise and a trend is signal. Note fluctuate; and that the Latin comes from fluctus, a wave, so a fluctuation is literally a waving.
1nounfluctuationAn up-and-down movement around an average.
“There's always some fluctuation in the price of fruit from week to week.”
fluctuation is a variation.
Latin fluctuatio comes from fluctus, a wave, from fluere, to flow. Fluid, influence and flux come from the same flowing.
Latin
fluctuatiōnem
English, today
fluctuation
Borrowed from Latin fluctuatiōnem, accusative singular of fluctuatiō, from fluctuō, from fluctus. Morphologically fluctuate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA