labile

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   liable to change

   An emotionally labile person.

2. 2
   adj

   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.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Labile entered English in the late Middle Ages through French from Latin labilis, whose senses included “smooth-flowing,” “unstable,” and “uncertain.” Early English uses included “liable to sin” and “unreliable”; it later came chiefly to mean “changeable,” especially of emotions that are readily aroused and quickly altered.

Borrowed from Latin lābilis (“apt to slip, transient”), from lābor, lābī (“slip; glide, flow”).

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