volatile
Etymology

From , from , from volō ("I fly").

Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈvɒl.əˌtaɪ.(ə)l/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈvɑ.lə.təl/, [ˈvɑ.lə.tl̩], [ˈvɑ.lə.ɾɫ̩]
Adjective

volatile

  1. (physics) Evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal conditions.
  2. (of a substance, informal) Explosive.
  3. (of a price etc) Variable or erratic.
  4. (of a person) Quick to become angry or violent.
    a volatile man
  5. Fickle.
  6. Temporary or ephemeral.
  7. (of a situation) Potentially violent.
  8. (programming, of a variable etc.) Having its associated memory immediately updated with any changes in value.
  9. (computing, of memory) Whose content is lost when the computer is powered down.
  10. (obsolete) Passing through the air on wings, or by the buoyant force of the atmosphere; flying; having the power to fly.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

volatile (plural volatiles)

  1. A chemical or compound that changes into a gas easily.
  2. (programming) A variable that is volatile, i.e. has its associated memory immediately updated with any change in value.
    • 2011, Victor Pankratius, Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai, Walter Tichy, Fundamentals of Multicore Software Development, page 74:
      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.



This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.001
Offline English dictionary