volatile

Language: en

🇺🇸 /ˈvɑlətəl/

📖 Definitions

  1. adjective
    Liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse; unstable.; Evaporating rapidly at normal temperatures; easily vaporized.; Easily aroused or excited; quick to lose one's temper or become emotional.; In computing, referring to memory or storage that loses its contents when power is removed, such as RAM.; In finance, referring to a security or market that experiences large and rapid price fluctuations.; In chemistry, describing a substance that has a low boiling point and a high vapor pressure at room temperature.; Tending to explode or be explosive; dangerously unstable.; Archaic: having the power of flight; flying.
  2. noun
    A volatile substance; a substance that evaporates readily.; In programming, a keyword used to indicate that a variable may be changed by external factors and should not be optimized by the compiler.

🔗 Details

Word forms

Comparative: more volatile Superlative: most volatile

Collocations

volatile marketvolatile situationvolatile compoundvolatile memoryhighly volatilevolatile substancevolatile temperament

Derivatives

volatilityvolatilizevolatilizationvolatileness

Synonyms

unstableunpredictableexplosiveerraticchangeableficklemercurial

Antonyms

stablesteadypredictablecalm

Commonly confused

voluble
EN: 'Voluble' means talkative or fluent in speech; 'volatile' means liable to change rapidly or evaporate easily.
volition
EN: 'Volition' refers to the power of choosing or willing; 'volatile' describes instability or tendency to change.

Spelling tips

EN: Do not confuse 'volatile' (unstable, evaporating easily) with 'voluble' (talkative). The second syllable is pronounced with a schwa sound, which can lead to misspellings like '*volitile'.

💬 Examples

  1. The political situation in the region remains highly volatile.

  2. Ether is a highly volatile liquid that evaporates quickly at room temperature.

  3. He was a volatile man who could fly into a rage at the slightest provocation.

  4. Data stored in volatile memory will be lost if the computer is shut down unexpectedly.

  5. Cryptocurrency markets are notoriously volatile, with prices swinging wildly within hours.

  6. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted from many household products and can affect indoor air quality.

  7. The mixture of chemicals was so volatile that it had to be handled with extreme caution.

  8. The poet described the volatile creatures soaring above the ancient forest.

  9. The chemist carefully distilled the volatiles from the crude oil sample.

  10. The variable was declared as volatile to prevent the compiler from caching its value in a register.