volatile
Syllables: vol·a·tile/ˈvɒl.əˌtaɪl/US/ˈvɑ.lə.təl/
volatile adjective: evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal conditions.
Adjective
volatile (comparative more volatile, superlative most volatile)
- Evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal conditions.
- Of a substance, explosive.
- Of a price, variable or erratic.
- Its pricing is highly volatile — and therefore highly risky. For all its nosebleed ascents, bitcoin also has had some gut-punching plunges. Between November 2021 and November 2022, for example, the price of bitcoin dropped 75%, from $64,455 to $16,196, according to data on coinmarketcap.com.2024 November 19, Jeanne Sahadi, “Bitcoin has smashed records. Should you invest?”, in CNN Business, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2025
- Of a person, quick to become angry or violent.
- a volatile man
- Fickle.
- Now Mr. Bush plans to pour more arms into this unstable region and add fuel to the volatile powderkeg he has foolishly created.2007 August 1, “Unwise Arms Deal With Saudi Arabia (2 Letters)”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022
- Synonyms:
- changeable, erratic, unpredictable
- Temporary or ephemeral.
- Synonyms:
- fleeting, passing, transitory, earthly, ephemeral, brief, deciduous, evanescent, flying, fugacious
- Of a situation potentially violent.
- Of a variable etc., having its associated memory immediately updated with any changes in value.
- This method stores a value into a non-volatile field called result, then stores true in the volatile field finished. The main thread waits for the field finished to be set to true, then reads the field result.2010, Jon Jagger, Nigel Perry, Peter Sestoft, Annotated C# Standard, page 467
- Of memory, whose content is lost when the computer is powered down.
- Passing through the air on wings, or by the buoyant force of the atmosphere; flying; having the power to fly.
Noun
volatile (plural volatiles)
- A chemical or compound that changes into a gas easily.
- A variable that is volatile, i.e. has its associated memory immediately updated with any change in value.
- Operations on C++ volatiles do put the compiler on notice that the object may be modified asynchronously, and hence are generally safer to use than ordinary variable accesses.2011, Victor Pankratius, Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai, Walter Tichy, Fundamentals of Multicore Software Development, page 74
volatile meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
volatile in Tamil
- துரிதமாக ஆவியாகிற, விரைவில் ஆவியாகும் தன்மை, நிலையற்ற, மாறுகின்ற
volatile in Urdu
- volatile
- خراب xarāb
volatile in Bengali
- সহজে পরিবর্তনশীল, অস্থির
volatile in Malayalam
- ക്ഷണത്തിൽ വാതകമായിത്തീരുന്ന, ക്ഷണനേരംകൊണ്ടു ഭാവം മാറുന്ന, ഉന്മേഷമുള്ള
More languagesFewer languages
- volatile in Kannada
- ಆವಿಯಾಗುವ, ತಟ್ಟನೆ ಮಾರ್ಪಡುವ, ಬಹುಬೇಗ ಬದಲಾಗಬಹುದಾದ, ಚಂಚಲವಾದ
- volatile in Arabic
- مُتَطَايِر mutaṭāyir, مُتَقَلِّب mutaqallib
- volatile in Malay
- meruap
- volatile in Indonesian
- asiri, mudah menguap, peledak, darah tinggi
- volatile in Thai
- ลบเลือนได้ lópleuandâi
- volatile in Vietnamese
- dễ bay hơi
Examples of volatile in a sentence
- These microbes are primarily responsible for breaking down cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids (VFAs).
- A hard drive is nonvolatile, but RAM is volatile.
- Jack is considered a loose cannon due to his volatile personality and his track record of being unable to maintain his composure.
Synonyms of volatile
27 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of volatile
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more volatile |
| superlative | most volatile |
| Noun | |
| plural | volatiles |
Origin of volatile
From Middle French volatile, from Latin volātilis (“flying; swift; temporary; volatile”), from volō (“to fly”).
Words formed from volatile
Phrases with volatile
Words that rhyme with volatile
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- kyle
- reptile
- sile
- smile
- Lyle
- tile
- while
- beguile
- bile
- Nile
- spile
- argyll
- awhile
- enisle
- guile
- gyle
- I'll
- last mile
- nubile
- resile
- restyle
- rile
- senile
- stile
- vile
- autogynephile
- bewile
- chile
- chyle
- Cnile
- District of Argyle
- heil
- ile
- interfile
- isle
- Japanophile
- Kabyle
- kile
- like it's going out of style
- Persophile
- redial
- refile
- revile
- Styal
- thyle
- tickler file
- wile
- worthwhile
Questions about volatile
- What does volatile mean?
- Volatile means evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal conditions.
- What is volatile in Tamil?
- Volatile in Tamil is துரிதமாக ஆவியாகிற, விரைவில் ஆவியாகும் தன்மை, நிலையற்ற. See Volatile meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is volatile?
- Volatile can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce volatile?
- Volatile is pronounced /ˈvɒl.əˌtaɪl/ (UK).
Words near volatile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: volatile (page history and authors); volatile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); خراب (Urdu) (page history and authors); volatile (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); volatile (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); volatile (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-volatile.wav.
Cite this entry: “volatile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/volatile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.