• (British) IPA: /ˈleɪbaɪl/

labile

1. Liable to slip, err, fall, or apostatize.
2. Apt or likely to change.

   Synonyms: unstable

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     Pythagoras [said] that each thing or matter was ever gliding and labile.

3. (chemistry, of a compound or bond) Kinetically unstable; rapidly cleaved (and possibly reformed).

   Certain drugs can be conjugated to polymer molecules with a linkage that is labile at low pH to effect controlled release in a cellular endosome.

   Water ligands typically bind metals in a labile fashion and are rapidly interchanged in aqueous solution.

4. (linguistics, of a verb) Able to change valency without changing its form; especially, able to be used both transitively and intransitively without changing its form.

• frigolabile
• lability
• lapse

• German: labil
• Spanish: lábil

• French: labile
• Italian: labile
• Spanish: lábil