vacillate between

vacillate between (one person or thing) and (another)

1. To be unable to make a decision or commitment between two different people or things. Which color should we paint the living room? I keep vacillating between sea green and eggshell blue. The play focuses on the countess vacillating between her youthful lover and her rich, powerful husband.
2. To change or fluctuate between two different states or conditions. In this country, the weather can vacillate between rain and sunshine in a matter of minutes. Our teacher vacillates between being way too strict and way too laid back on a daily basis.
See also: and, between, person, vacillate
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

vacillate between (someone and someone else) (or something and something else)

to waver between a choice of people or a choice of things. He kept vacillating between Fred and Alice. Wayne vacillated between chocolate and vanilla.
See also: between, vacillate
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • vacillate
  • vacillate between (one person or thing) and (another)
  • in (one's) opinion
  • in opinion
  • paint in
  • green room
  • paint out
  • paint over
  • paint on
  • paint onto
References in periodicals archive
Corduroy makes Leah feel visible and alive as Kristy and Corrine vacillate between ditching her and treating her like their best friend.
NNA - ACI Lebanon on Tuesday hosted a ceremony at Four Seasons hotel in Beirut upon its golden jubilee, under the auspices of Lebanese Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, who said that despite the current critical juncture shaking Lebanon on both the political and security levels, real growth was expected to vacillate between 2 and 5%, with inflation ration that would not exceed 4%.
An individual suffering from brain allergies might exhibit symptoms that vacillate between behaviors on both ends of the scale.
Sentiment is driving large daily swings as traders vacillate between the fear that oil prices will hit consumers and derail the recovery, and the euphoria that the U.S.
The brackishly colored figures vacillate between states of terror and jubilation, caught between suspension and flight.
I vacillate between answering "yes" and "no" to each, check to see which response feels more like the truth and gets me closer to understanding.
Many counselor's-in-training vacillate between stages.
Appiah contends that Wright in Black Power (1954) has no attachment to or interest in Africa; as a result, the reader witnesses Wright's mood swings as they vacillate between condescension and paranoia.
Stamping Ground, a second Kylian essay into contemporay primitivism, this time with aboriginal dance as the inspiration, seemed to vacillate between authenticity and satire, and yet it did not lack invention.
As a society we seem to vacillate between the so-called liberal stance of "I'm okay, you're okay" to the ultraconservatism of "Nobody's okay except people like me." So between those two extremes there must be a place people can stand.
Suggestively here Gentilcore appears to vacillate between playing the role of Virgil and Beatrice, as he seems to be guiding the reader at one moment through hell and the next through heaven, but nicely in the end he shows us how all that he describes is part of one very richly revealing divine comedy, that made up the sacred world of early modern Terra d'Otranto.
Early in the APA process, the IRS seemed to vacillate between targeting actual results for a particular entity and targeting the methodology to be used.
Along the way, her relationships with Daniel and Oliver vacillate between better and worse.
Moreover, the study also points out that water consumption will vacillate between 64 and 104 l on a daily basis per one refugee, which will increase water demand between 8 and 12% on the national level.
Nearly all of the photos are shiny, generously sized Cibachromes mounted on aluminum museum boxes, which give them an almost holographic quality--they seem to vacillate between flatness and dimensionality.