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The state, condition, or quality, of being light or not heavy; buoyancy; levity; fickleness; delicacy; grace.

Having the qualities fabled to belong to the god Mercury; swift; active; sprightly; fickle; volatile; changeable; as, a mercurial youth; a mercurial temperament. A mercurial man Who fluttered over all things like a fan. Byron.

Sprightly or mercurial quality; spirit; mutability; fickleness. [Obs.] He was so full of mercury that he could not fix long in any friendship, or to any design. Bp. Burnet.

Easily moved in feeling, purpose, or direction; excitable; changeable; fickle. Testament of Love. The quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition. Hawthorne.

Changeable; inconstant; unsettled; unstable; fickle. "Most mutable wishes." Byron.

To vary or fluctuate between fixed limits; to act or move in a fickle or fluctuating manner; to change repeatedly, back and forth. The amount of superior families oscillates rather than changes, that is, it fluctuates within fixed limits. Dc Quincey.

Too much or too frequent change; fickleness. [R.] Beau. & Fl.

One in receipt of a pension; hence, figuratively, a dependent. The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. Milton. Old pensioners . . . of Chelsea Hospital. Macaulay.

Hence, a fickle, inconstant person.

Changing in place, position, or direction; varying; variable; fickle; as, shifting winds; shifting opinions or principles.

Wanton; restive; freakish; volatile; changeable; fickle. "Skittish Fortune's hall." Shak. -- Skit"tish*ly, adv. -- Skit"tish*ness, n.

Unstable; changeable; mutable; uncertain; inconstant; fickle. "The slippery state of kings." Denham.

or firmness of character, firmness of resolution or purpose; the quality opposite to Ant: fickleness, Ant: irresolution, or Ant: inconstancy; constancy; steadfastness; as, a man of little stability, or of unusual stability.

Steady in purpose; constant; firm in resolution; not easily diverted from a purpose; not fickle or wavering; as, a man of stable character. And to her husband ever meek and stable. Chaucer.

Not fickle or wavering; constant; firm; resolute; unswerving; steady. "Steadfast eye." Shak. Abide steadfast unto him [thy neighbor] in the time of his trouble. Ecclus. xxii. 23. Whom resist steadfast in the faith. 1 Pet. v. 9.

Constant in feeling, purpose, or pursuit; not fickle, changeable, or wavering; not easily moved or persuaded to alter a purpose; resolute; as, a man steady in his principles, in his purpose, or in the pursuit of an object.

e, esp. in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds. Fortune, as she 's wont, turned fickle, And for the foe began to stickle. Hudibras. While for paltry punk they roar and stickle. Dryden. The obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong. Hazlitt.

Fickleness of conduct; inconstancy; change. The colonel, after all his tergiversations, lost his life in the king's service. Clarendon.

o friends, to promises, to a prince, or the like; unwavering; faithful; loyal; not false, fickle, or perfidious; as, a true friend; a wife true to her husband; an officer true to his charge. Thy so true, So faithful, love unequaled. Milton. Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie. Herbert.

Not constant; inconstant; fickle; changeable. [Obs.] Shak. -- Un*con"stant*ly, adv. [Obs.] -- Un*con"stant*ness, n. [Obs.]