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Want of stability or uniformity; unsteadiness; changeableness; variableness. Mutability of temper, and inconsistency with ourselves, is the greatest weakness of human nature. Addison.

Incapableness of decomposition; stability; permanence; durability.

Instability; unstableness.

esses, which give rise to substances (katastates) of decreasing complexity and increasing stability.

Slipperiness; instability; as, the lubricity of fortune. L'Estrange.

ace. Abutment pier, the pier of a bridge next the shore; a pier which by its strength and stability resists the thrust of an arch. -- Pier glass, a mirror, of high and narrow shape, to be put up between windows. -- Pier table, a table made to stand between windows.

nknown causes or events; exposed to constant risk; not to be depended on for certainty or stability; uncertain; as, a precarious state of health; precarious fortunes. "Intervals of partial and precarious liberty." Macaulay.

Firmness of mind; stability not to be shaken.

Fig.: To move from firmness; to weaken the stability of; to cause to waver; to impair the resolution of. When his doctrines grew too strong to be shook by his enemies, they persecuted his reputation. Atterbury. Thy equal fear that my firm faith and love Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced. Milton.…

Instability; inconstancy. [Obs.] The vain shittlenesse of an unconstant head. Baret.

apable of being readily shifted. The sloop usually carries a centerboard, and depends for stability upon breadth of beam rather than depth of keel. The two types have rapidly approximated since 1880. One radical distinction is that a slop may carry a centerboard. See Cutter, and Illustration in Appendix. Sloop of war,…

r, -- opposed to openness or hollowness; strength; soundness, -- opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness. That which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moving one toward another, I call solidi…

The quality or state of being stable, or firmly established; stability.

The quality of turning; instability; tergiversation. [Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.