volatile
Other forms: volatiles
Watch out when a situation becomes volatile — it is likely to change for the worse suddenly. If you and your best friend have a volatile relationship, you frequently fight and make up.
Volatile from Latin volatilis, "fleeting, transitory," always gives the sense of sudden, radical change. Think of it as the opposite of stable. A person who is volatile loses his or her temper suddenly and violently. A volatile political situation could erupt into civil war. When the stock market is volatile, it fluctuates greatly. And in scientific language, a volatile oil evaporates quickly.
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liable to lead to sudden change or violence
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marked by erratic changeableness in affections or attachments“a flirt's volatile affections”synonyms: fickleinconstantlikely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable
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tending to vary often or widely“volatile stocks”“volatile emotions”synonyms:
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evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures“volatile oils”“volatile solvents”synonyms:inconstantlikely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variableevaporable, vaporific, vaporizable, vapourific, vapourisable, volatilisable, volatilizable(used of substances) capable of being volatilizedantonyms:nonvolatilenot volatilizing readily
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a substance that changes readily from solid or liquid to vapor“it was heated to evaporate the volatiles”type of:substancethe real physical matter of which a person or thing consists
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Vocabulary lists containing volatile
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No time to scour the headlines or watch the news? No problem! We’ve rounded up the top words heard, read, debated, and discussed this week. Some weeks are the calm before the storm, and some weeks are the storm itself. In terms of both events and the vocabulary used to describe them, this was a stormy week. The earth itself was volatile, with a 7.3 earthquake occurring the Iran-Iraq border. In a storm of words, President Trump franticallyassailed critics and was adamant in his insistence that the Republican Tax Plan include a repeal of the Obamacare insurance mandate. And, on a lighter note, Taylor Swift's latest release stormed the pop charts like a force of nature. Take a look back at the week that was, vocabulary style.