volatility
Americannoun
Explanation
Volatility is the trait of being excitable and unpredictable. Your volatility might ultimately be the thing that makes you unsuitable as a preschool teacher. The noun volatility is the characteristic of changing often and unpredictably. Your sister's volatility might be shown in how quickly she switches from laughing to crying. If you talk about the volatility of the stock market, stock prices are most likely fluctuating wildly. In chemistry, volatility means the speed with which a substance changes from solid to liquid, liquid to vapor, and so on. The root is the Latin volatilis, "fleeting, transitory, flying."
Vocabulary lists containing volatility
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Streichert stressed that Lufthansa had hedged over 80 percent its fuel costs for 2026, meaning they had it largely locked in prices and was less exposed to market volatility.
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2026
As a result, tech stocks “have seen a lot more volatility, so it’s keeping a dampener on the overall market,” Saglimbene told MarketWatch in a phone interview on Monday.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 2, 2026
Traders are bracing for volatility in the short run.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026
Consumer staples tend to be “a safer place to be within the equity market,” said Empower’s Norton, “as there’s just not a whole lot of earnings volatility there.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2026
They measured risk by volatility: how much a stock or bond happened to have jumped around in the past few years.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
