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.
The Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald said the increasing level of renewable energy would help Northern Ireland "move away from price volatility and towards more stable and fairer prices" .
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
She added that increased levels of renewable electricity "move us away from price volatility and towards more stable and fairer prices for the electricity we use".
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
“Buying negative-beta stocks helps a long term oriented portfolio ‘ride out’ volatility events, with interest rate, geopolitical and midterm election uncertainty the catalysts for another such event as September gets underway,” the analysts said.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
The high multiple has made it susceptible to volatility, as any headline or development can threaten to satisfy a market that has priced the shares to perfection.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
The most striking change in his personality was his volatility: good news triggered uncontained outbursts of joy, often extinguished only through increasingly acrobatic bouts of physical exercise, while bad news plunged him into inconsolable desolation.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions 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.
