Unstable
[ʌn'steɪb(ə)l] or [ʌn'stebl]
Definition
(adj.) highly or violently reactive; 'sensitive and highly unstable compounds' .
(adj.) disposed to psychological variability; 'his rather unstable religious convictions' .
(adj.) lacking stability or fixity or firmness; 'unstable political conditions'; 'the tower proved to be unstable in the high wind'; 'an unstable world economy' .
Inputed by Glenda--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Not stable; not firm, fixed, or constant; subject to change or overthrow.
Edited by Hugh
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Unsteady.
Checker: Yale
Definition
adj. not stable unreliable infirm inconstant: in such a physical state that the slightest change induces further change of form or composition.—ns. Unstabil′ity Unstā′bleness.
Typist: Nola
Examples
- At length down he came, with an unstable step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- All was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- It is anarchic, because unstable. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Nothing is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- A weak will is unstable as water. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- They are unstable compounds, decomposing readily, and furnish the acrid products which make strong butter. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- The angels that I know are creatures of unstable fancy--they will not fit in niches of substantial stone. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires lasted for a considerable time: the forms of government in Asia Minor and the Balkans were more unstable. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Typist: Nola