Etymologically
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volatile

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:43. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈvɒl.əˌtaɪl/[1]
  • US: /ˈvɑ.lə.təl/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English volatil,[2] borrowed from Old French volatil,[3][4][5][6] or directly from Latin volātilis (“flying, winged; fleeting, transitory”),[3][4][7][8] formed with the suffix -ilis from volātus, the past participle of volō (“to fly”).[9][2][8][10] Merriam-Webster takes the early noun, meaning a bird, as a back-formation in Old French from volatille (“group of birds”), from Medieval Latin volātilia, the neuter plural of the Latin adjective.[2] Barnhart and Etymonline derive the adjective of the 1590s from Middle French volatile.[10][7] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster think the Latin verb perhaps related to a Sanskrit word for a wing and to the name of a mythical bird in Sanskrit.[10][2][11] The same Latin verb gave volley and volant.[11][12][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a noun, a winged creature, a bird or butterfly, before 1325, in a prose Psalter;[3] Etymonline dates volatiles, birds and other winged creatures, to about 1300.[7] In the collective sense "birds, wildfowl" it is in the Wycliffite Bible of 1382, a use already found in Anglo-Norman volatile in the early 12th century.[3][13]

Semantic evolution

The adjective first described meal ground so fine that it flew about (1598–99),[3][4] while from 1605 it described substances that pass readily into vapour, the chemists' sense.[3][10][2] The literal "flying, able to fly" is recorded from 1626, in Bacon,[3] and Johnson (1755) still listed it first, quoting Bacon on the caterpillar that "waxeth volatile".[14] The use of a person or mind, "changeable, fickle, flighty", is dated 1661 by the OED,[3] but 1647 by Barnhart and the 1640s by Etymonline;[10][7] Word Origins sets it in the mid-17th century.[12] Barnhart dates the extended sense "quickly vanishing, transient" to 1665.[10] The noun volatile, a volatile substance, followed in 1698,[3] while the old noun for birds died out in the 17th century.[3][4] Of stocks and markets the word is recorded by 1931,[7] and in computing it describes memory that loses its data when the power is cut.[15]

Timeline

  • a. 1325 – noun, a winged creature, a bird.[3]
  • 1382 – noun, collective, birds, wildfowl (obsolete by 1660).[3]
  • 1598 – of meal, so fine as to fly about (obsolete).[3]
  • 1605 – of substances, readily evaporating.[3][2][10]
  • 1626 – flying, able to fly.[3]
  • 1647 – fickle, readily changing.[10]
  • 1661 – of the mind or temper, changeable, flighty.[3]
  • 1665 – quickly vanishing, transient.[10]
  • 1698 – noun, a volatile substance.[3]
  • 1931 – of stocks or markets.[7]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Of a substance, turning readily into vapour at a low temperature; quick to evaporate: volatile solvents.
  2. Of a person, liable to sudden changes of mood; fickle or mercurial: Her volatile brother could laugh and storm within a minute.
  3. Of a situation, liable to sudden, unpredictable or explosive change: a volatile market.
  4. Lasting only a short time.
  5. (computing) Of memory, losing the data stored in it when the power is cut off.
  6. (obsolete) Flying, able to fly.

Noun

  1. A volatile substance: coffee volatiles.
  2. (rare) A winged creature, a bird.

Word family

  • volatileness
  • volatility
  • semivolatile
  • volatilise
  • volatilize
  • nonvolatile
  • unvolatile
  • sal volatile
  • volley
  • volant

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins