What does "volatile" mean?

A chemical or compound that changes into a gas easily.

What is a synonym for "volatile"?

Common synonyms include: changeable, explosive, fickle, adrift, afloat, agitable.

//ˈvɑ.lə.təl// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Noun

1
A chemical or compound that changes into a gas easily.
2
a volatile substance; a substance that changes readily from solid or liquid to a vapor wordnet
3
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."

Adjective

1
Evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal conditions.
2
Of a substance, explosive. informal
3
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."
4
Of a person, quick to become angry or violent.
"a volatile man"
5
Fickle.

Show 5 more definitions

6
Temporary or ephemeral.
7
Of a situation potentially violent.
8
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."
9
Of memory, whose content is lost when the computer is powered down.
10
Passing through the air on wings, or by the buoyant force of the atmosphere; flying; having the power to fly. obsolete