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
This Week in Words: October 21- 27, 2018
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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.
And this stoic performance comes despite a number of potentially destabilizing factors, including volatility in the oil market and in the technology sector.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
The commission and Gov. Gavin Newsom point to gas price volatility as one reason why so many Californians decided to turn in their gasoline-powered vehicles for electric ones.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
"This could contribute to changes in macroeconomic conditions, periods of elevated volatility and more measured investor sentiment."
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Rival cruise line Carnival said last month that extreme geopolitical volatility has disrupted bookings, and the company issued a soft outlook, expecting higher fuel costs to continue to weigh on profit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Since the volatility of these last digits makes them essentially random, every number from 000 to 999 is equally likely to come up.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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.
