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What is "instability"

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instability
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
instability
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
economic
▪ The main disadvantage is that political or economic instability within the country may cause problems outside the control of the parent company.
▪ Gold is seen by many investors as a safe haven in times of economic and political instability.
▪ The main consequence of the Famine, after human loss of life and suffering, was continuing economic and social instability.
▪ Along with social and economic instability, they are among the main sources of crisis, loss of life and human misery.
emotional
▪ With increasing use, it leads to emotional instability and feelings of paranoia.
▪ For a regrettable number, emotional instability and spiritual confusion remain long after the physical bruises have faded.
▪ We can not bear emotion in public, and we look at grief as pathological or a sign of emotional instability.
▪ Individual predisposition Psychological factors Most researchers have concluded that the premorbid personality is characterised by substantial emotional instability.
▪ There are signs of emotional instability in those who have been deeply affected by the literature.
financial
▪ But this experiment has relaunched the debate over which monetary and exchange system can best cope with international financial instability.
▪ Towering over East Main Street, the elegant nine-story landmark has been plagued by financial instability since it opened in 1925.
▪ The result: slower growth, higher inflation and financial instability.
▪ It became possible to believe that financial instability was not an inherent part of capitalism.
▪ Each of these episodes brought on periods of financial instability.
▪ The fault lines of financial instability are real.
inherent
▪ Its inherent instability of organization was evident long before it collapsed.
▪ Gordon's analysis calls for a longer term perspective and points to the inherent instability of world capitalism today.
mental
▪ A few moments of complete mental instability when you were unscrupulous enough to take advantage of me.
▪ If Friedman had a history of mental instability, why was he let into the army?
▪ There had been, the broadcast added unexpectedly, a history of mental instability.
▪ Alex Household had a history of mental instability and paranoia.
▪ Particularly impressive is Wall's subtle exploration of the relationship between creativity and mental instability.
▪ I think there may have been some mental instability on Grandfather's part.
▪ This was no longer an affront to the public conscience, where the suicide resulted from mental instability.
▪ Once his mental instability was recognised, he was sent to hospital, but died of a heart attack in the ambulance.
political
▪ The main disadvantage is that political or economic instability within the country may cause problems outside the control of the parent company.
▪ Gold is seen by many investors as a safe haven in times of economic and political instability.
▪ The research will analyse the changing structure of leadership and the conditions which give rise to political stability and instability.
▪ And such a world will have to get used to the social and political instability which these crises leave in their wake.
▪ Countdown to breakdown Sierra Leone's history is littered with instances of political instability and economic mismanagement.
▪ An inequitable distribution of wealth, income and employment can result in future political instability.
social
▪ The main consequence of the Famine, after human loss of life and suffering, was continuing economic and social instability.
▪ Ultimately, unless market forces are restored, high levels of unemployment and social instability in the region should be expected.
▪ And such a world will have to get used to the social and political instability which these crises leave in their wake.
▪ Along with social and economic instability, they are among the main sources of crisis, loss of life and human misery.
▪ Eventually they may take over a small group when the large parent troop undergoes fission as increasing size produces social instability.
▪ The study shows that disasters affected local communities and peak several months after prolonged social instability.
■ VERB
cause
▪ For example, copper and iron can cause instability ill peroxide bleaching baths and damage to cotton during bleaching.
▪ It is also likely to cause instability elsewhere in the region.
▪ Cracks look unsightly, and may also cause instability.
▪ This, at times, can cause instability within an authority, although, equally, mobility can bring new ideas.
create
▪ This creates political instability and chronic social unrest.
▪ The government blamed the unrest on the activities of several small left-wing groups intent on creating general instability.
▪ Mass movement of the population creates instability and demoralization, even for those not directly affected.
▪ The existence of two rival regimes will create instability in an already very fragile legal framework.
increase
▪ Not wishing to risk increasing instability, Franco adopted a familiar tactic: he did nothing until the panorama became clearer.
▪ Eventually they may take over a small group when the large parent troop undergoes fission as increasing size produces social instability.
lead
▪ With increasing use, it leads to emotional instability and feelings of paranoia.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Her mental instability led her to commit these crimes.
▪ There are fears that political instability in the region will lead to civil war.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Instability

Instability \In`sta*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. Instabilities. [L. instabilitas: cf. F. instabilit['e].]

  1. The quality or condition of being unstable; lack of stability, firmness, or steadiness; liability to give way or to fail; insecurity; precariousness; as, the instability of a building.

  2. Lack of determination of fixedness; inconstancy; fickleness; mutability; changeableness; as, instability of character, temper, custom, etc.
    --Addison.

    Syn: Inconstancy; fickleness; changeableness; wavering; unsteadiness; unstableness.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
instability

early 15c., from Middle French instabilite "inconstancy," from Latin instabilitatem (nominative instabilitas) "unsteadiness," from instabilis "unsteady," from in- "not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + stabilis (see stable (2)).

Wiktionary
instability

n. 1 (context uncountable English) The quality of being unstable. 2 (context physics countable English) A state that is not in equilibrium, or in which a small change has a large irreversible effect.

Related phrases:
WordNet
instability

  1. n. an unstable order [ant: stability]

  2. unreliability attributable to being unstable

  3. a state of disequilibrium (as may occur in cases of inner ear disease) [syn: imbalance, unbalance] [ant: balance]

  4. the quality or attribute of being unstable and irresolute [syn: unstableness] [ant: stability, stability]

Wikipedia
Instability

In numerous fields of study, the component of instability within a system is generally characterized by some of the outputs or internal states growing without bounds. Not all systems that are not stable are unstable; systems can also be marginally stable or exhibit limit cycle behavior.

In structural engineering, a structure can become unstable when excessive load is applied. Beyond a certain threshold, structural deflections magnify stresses, which in turn increases deflections. This can take the form of buckling or crippling. The general field of study is called structural stability.

Atmospheric instability is a major component of all weather systems on Earth.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "instability".

A planet abides that life which accepts its whims, but man it rejects, man it seeks to obliterate, pitting the monumental force of its instability against that pitiful life form, driving man forth to seek the stars or die.

Mars has laid stress on a feedback mechanism known as advective instability.

Immediately, instabilities arose among the simulated cores, insoluble disagreements throwing them into deadlock.

Women in modest skirts or slightly unflattering pantsuits, like Jesse Simons, the Deconstructionist, who argued that doping the water supply was embracing the nomadic sign system of Albertine, which of course represented not some empirical astrophysical event, but, rather, a symbolic reaction to the crisis of instability caused by American Imperialism.

Because of her history of sexual abuse, proven sexual track record, and suggestion of mental instability, the Wests would have been certain that there was every chance that she would never be believed - even if she did report the events of that morning to the police or the Social Services.

You dare not, you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other--of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.

If the Engineers kept up their attempts to attack the Orbitals, if the warheads kept betraying their age and instability, if Duncan kept on throwing rocks, food, water, and air would be contaminated with radioactive fallout.

He referred to international data banks for stock-market trends, economic indicators, unemployment data, factory closings, interest rates, wage-price movements, financial-institution failures, strikes, lock-outs, bankruptcies, foreclosures, fluctuations in exchange rates, commodity prices, oil and gas shortages, imbalances of trade, assassinations, political instabilities, coups, terrorist attacks, and third-world nuclear capabilities.

Such a region is the result of an instability between the two congruent universes.

This could build up to the point of instability, when it became necessary to annihilate or create dark matter at the Bridgeheads to redress the energy balance.

Increased chronometric radiation was, according to unproven theory, indicative of increased instability.

To me, this gave him an element of instability, of counterstrength, of violence.

He could see the cube had filled with datasheets, fuzzy green script with a perceptible Y-axis instability.

These people must have been trying to replicate my desalination process and were unaware of the material's instability.

If we can inflict sufficient losses on the local naval forces to provide the Emperor with a pretext, the Empire will declare that the instability in this region of the Confederacy has become great enough in its opinion to threaten a general destabilization of the area.