Volatile

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Volatile \Vol"a*tile\, a. [F. volatil, L. volatilis, fr. volare
     to fly, perhaps akin to velox swift, E. velocity. Cf.
     {Volley}.]
     1. Passing through the air on wings, or by the buoyant force
        of the atmosphere; flying; having the power to fly. [Obs.]
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. Capable of wasting away, or of easily passing into the
        aeriform state; subject to evaporation.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Substances which affect the smell with pungent or
           fragrant odors, as musk, hartshorn, and essential oils,
           are called volatile substances, because they waste away
           on exposure to the atmosphere. Alcohol and ether are
           called volatile liquids for a similar reason, and
           because they easily pass into the state of vapor on the
           application of heat. On the contrary, gold is a fixed
           substance, because it does not suffer waste, even when
           exposed to the heat of a furnace; and oils are called
           fixed when they do not evaporate on simple exposure to
           the atmosphere.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Fig.: Light-hearted; easily affected by circumstances;
        airy; lively; hence, changeable; fickle; as, a volatile
        temper.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              You are as giddy and volatile as ever. --Swift.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Volatile alkali}. (Old Chem.) See under {Alkali}.
  
     {Volatile liniment}, a liniment composed of sweet oil and
        ammonia, so called from the readiness with which the
        latter evaporates.
  
     {Volatile oils}. (Chem.) See {Essential oils}, under
        {Essential}.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Volatile \Vol"a*tile\, n. [Cf. F. volatile.]
     A winged animal; wild fowl; game. [Obs.] --Chaucer. --Sir T.
     Browne.
     [1913 Webster] Volatileness

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  volatile
       adj 1: evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures;
              "volatile oils"; "volatile solvents" [ant: {nonvolatile}]
       2: liable to lead to sudden change or violence; "an explosive
          issue"; "a volatile situation with troops and rioters
          eager for a confrontation" [syn: {explosive}]
       3: marked by erratic changeableness in affections or
          attachments; "fickle friends"; "a flirt's volatile
          affections" [syn: {fickle}]
       4: tending to vary often or widely; "volatile stocks";
          "volatile emotions"
       n : a volatile substance; a substance that changes readily from
           solid or liquid to a vapor; "it was heated to evaporate
           the volatiles"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  167 Moby Thesaurus words for "volatile":
     adrift, afloat, agitable, airy, alternating, amorphous,
     birdbrained, birdwitted, bouncy, brittle, bubbly, buoyant,
     capricious, changeable, changeful, charged, coquettish,
     corruptible, deciduous, desultory, deviable, dizzy, downy, dying,
     eccentric, edgy, effervescent, ephemeral, erratic, eruptive,
     ethereal, evanescent, evaporable, evaporative, expansive,
     explosive, faddish, fading, fast and loose, featherbrained,
     feathery, fickle, fitful, fleeting, flickering, flighty, flippant,
     flirtatious, flitting, fluctuating, fluffy, fly-by-night, flying,
     foamy, fragile, frail, freakish, frivolous, frothy, fugacious,
     fugitive, giddy, gossamery, hair-trigger, impermanent, impetuous,
     imponderous, impulsive, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive,
     infirm, insubstantial, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, leger,
     light, light as air, light-minded, lighter than vanity, lubricious,
     mazy, mercurial, momentary, moody, mortal, mousse, mutable,
     nondurable, nonpermanent, passing, perishable, protean,
     quicksilver, rambling, resilient, restless, roving, scatterbrained,
     sensitive, shallow, shallow-headed, shallow-minded, shallow-pated,
     shallow-witted, shapeless, shifting, shifty, short-lived,
     shuffling, skittery, skittish, souffle, spasmodic, spineless,
     startlish, superficial, temperamental, temporal, temporary, tense,
     ticklish, toying, transient, transitive, transitory, unaccountable,
     uncertain, uncontrolled, undependable, undisciplined, undurable,
     unenduring, unfixed, unheavy, unpredictable, unprofound,
     unreliable, unrestrained, unsettled, unstable, unstable as water,
     unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, vacillating, vagrant, vaporable,
     vaporescent, vaporizable, vaporizing, variable, versatile,
     vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatilizable, wandering, wanton,
     wavering, wavery, wavy, wayward, weightless, whimsical,
     wishy-washy, yeasty
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  volatile
       
          1.  {volatile variable}.
       
          2.  See {non-volatile storage}.
       
          (1997-06-05)