verb
definition
To release (an animal) from a stable.
adjective
definition
Having a strong tendency to change.
definition
Fluctuating; not constant.
definition
Fickle.
definition
Unpredictable.
definition
Readily decomposable.
definition
Radioactive, especially with a short half-life.
Examples of unstable in a Sentence
The new empire was unstable from the first.
Unstable as he was, it didn't take much to send Josh down the porch steps.
The closer they drew, the more intense the pressure, and the more unstable they became.
Lydia Larkin was a wreck, as unstable as the night Billy Langstrom died.
From 1809 to 1812 Speranski was all-powerful in Russia, so far as any minister of a sovereign so suspicious and so unstable as Alexander could be so described.
There are two types of angina, stable and unstable.
They are very unstable, and do not react in the normal manner.
It was adventurous, small, scattered and unstable.
It behaves as a monobasic acid and forms unstable salts.
Diazobenzenecyanide, C 6 H 5 N 2 CN, is an unstable oil, formed when potassium cyanide is added to a solution of a diazonium salt.
Elements exhibiting strong basigenic or oxygenic characters yield the most stable hydroxides; in other words, stable hydroxides are associated with elements belonging to the extreme groups of the periodic system, and unstable hydroxides with the central members.
The peace proved unstable, and there was desultory skirmishing in 1161.
Stevinus also distinguished stable from unstable equilibrium.
They are very unstable, exploding violently when heated or rubbed.
Briihl (Ber., 1895, 28, p. 2847) is of opinion that a very unstable, more highly oxidized product is produced in small quantity in the process.
It is probable that the whole phenomenon of isomerism is due to the possibility that compounds or systems which in reality are unstable yet persist, or so slowly change that practically one can speak of their stability; for instance, such systems as explosives and a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, where the stable form is water, and in which, according to some, a slow but until now undetected change takes place even at ordinary temperatures.
In the divalent oxygen we meet with the modification called ozone, which, although unstable, changes but slowly into oxygen.
They form unstable addition products with sodium ethylate or methylate.
The crystals so obtained are very unstable and decompose rapidly with evolution of carbon dioxide.
These unstable combinations were soon after upset by Alcibiades himself, who, having succeeded in displacing Nicias as strategus in 419, allowed Athenian troops to help in attacking Epidaurus.
Mr Gladstones cabinet was as unstable as the public opinion it sought to conciliate.
Princes and towns did homage to him, but his position was unstable, and the allegiance of many of the princes, among them Albert duke of Austria, son of the late king Rudolph, was merely nominal.
The state of every individual is unstable, temporary, sure to pass away.
A hero, who was probably originally intended to demonstrate the failure of the vacillating temperament when brought face to face with the problems of art, proved ill-adapted to demonstrate those precepts for the guidance of life with which the Lehrjahre closes; unstable of purpose, Wilhelm Meister is not so much an illustration of the author's life-philosophy as a lay-figure on which he demonstrates his views.
In r608 Captain Hawkins visited Jahangir at Agra, and obtained permission to build a factory at Surat, which was subsequently revoked, and in 1609 some English merchants obtained an unstable footing at Surat.
In his youth, as duke of Anjou, he was warmly attached to the Huguenot opinions, as we learn from his sister Marguerite de Valois; but his unstable character soon gave way before his mother's will, and both Henry and Marguerite remained choice ornaments of the Catholic Church.
The thing of sense in its relative isolation is unstable.
On the other hand the stability of the known oxygen compounds increases with the atomic weight, thus iodine pentoxide is, at ordinary temperatures, a well-defined crystalline solid, which is only decomposed on heating strongly, whilst chlorine monoxide, chlorine peroxide, and chlorine heptoxide are very unstable, even at ordinary temperatures, decomposing at the slightest shock.
It is extremely unstable, decomposing with extreme violence on the slightest shock or disturbance, or on exposure to sunlight.
The salts of this acid are known as hypochlorites, and like the acid itself are very unstable, so that it is almost impossible to obtain them pure.
Again, the locus of G is an arc of an ellipse whose centre is in the intersection of the planes; since this arc is convex upwards the equilibrium is unstable.
The position x=o is one of equilibrium, but it is unstable.
This applies to the inverted pendulum, with u =g/l, but the equation (9) is then only approximate, and the solution therefore only serves to represent the initial stages of a motion in the neighborhood of the position of unstable equilibrium.
If the quadratic (38) has a negative root, the trigonometrical functions in (36) are to be replaced by real exponentials, and the position x=o, y=o is unstable.
Hence a rotation about the axis of greatest or least moment is reckoned as stable, a rotation about the mean axis as unstable.
The red wines include the elegant and delicate (though not unstable) wines of the Gironde, and again the full, though not coarse, wines of the Burgundy district.
Cu2S5, Cu 2 S 6, Cu4S5, Cu 2 S 3, have been described; they are all unstable, decomposing into cupric sulphide and sulphur.
It is very unstable, a scratch causing it instantaneously to pass into the stable form with explosive violence and the development of much heat.
Shortly it may be said that he was essentially a mass of contradictions - brilliant, passionate to the point of mania, but utterly weak and unstable, capable of developing into a saint or a monster, but quite incapable of becoming an ordinary human being.
The supremacy of the Crown, though recognized, was still unstable.
We must not, however, raise the upper net too much, or the system of films will become unstable.
But if the length of the cylindric film is greater than its circumference, and if we suppose the disk C to be placed midway between A and B, and to be moved towards A, the pressure on the side next A will diminish, and that on the side next B will increase, so that the resultant force will tend to increase the displacement, and the equilibrium of the disk C is therefore unstable.
Hence the equilibrium of a cylindric film whose length is greater than its circumference is unstable.
Let us conceive an infinitely long circular cylinder of liquid, at rest (a motion common to every part of the fluid is necessarily without influence upon the stability, and may therefore be left out of account for convenience of conception and expression), and inquire under what circumstances it is stable or unstable, for small displacements, symmetrical about the axis of figure.
Accordingly, the equilibrium is stable if A be less than the circumference; but unstable if A be greater than the circumference of the cylinder.
Hence the film in the form of the catenoid which is nearest the axis is in unstable equilibrium under the condition that it is exposed to equal pressures within and without.
The equilibrium of the fluids would now be unstable if it were not for the tension of the surface which separates them, and which, when the orifice of the vessel is not too large, continues to preserve the stability of the equilibrium.
When the equilibrium at last becomes unstable, the destruction of equilibrium takes place by the lighter fluid ascending in one part of the orifice and the heavier descending in the other.
If this quantity is of the same sign as z, the displacement will be increased, and the equilibrium will be unstable.
The general result of such research has been to show that the toxic bodies are, like proteids, precipitable by alcohol and various salts; they are soluble in water, are somewhat easily dialysable, and are relatively unstable both to light and heat.