- inconstant
- inconstant, fickle, capricious, mercurial, unstable mean lacking or showing lack of firmness or steadiness in purpose, attachment, or devotion.Inconstant, usually applied to persons though sometimes to things, suggests an inherent or constitutional tendency to change frequently; it commonly implies an incapacity for fixity or steadiness (as in one's affections, aspirations, or course){
swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb— Shak.
}{people seldom know what they would be at, young men especially, they are so amazingly changeable and inconstant— Austen
}{Spanish assistance from the sea was inconstant, almost accidental— Jones
}Fickle retains only a hint of its basic implication of deceitfulness or treacherousness, but its basic implications of instability and unreliability are colored by the suggestion of an incapacity for being true, steadfast, or certain{Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle—Shak.
}{bitter experience soon taught him that lordly patrons are fickle and their favor not to be relied on— Huxley
}{she is ficklel How she turns from one face to another face— and smiles into them all!— Millay
}Capricious suggests qualities which manifest or seem to manifest a lack of guidance by a power (as law, authority, or reason) that tends to regularize movements or acts. When used in reference to persons, it suggests guidance by whim, mood, freak, or sudden impulse{Louis XIII ... a boy of eight at his accession . . . grows up capricious, restricted and cold, hardly normal— Belloc
}{he judged her to be capricious, and easily wearied of the pleasure of the moment— Wharton
}When used in reference to things, it implies an irregularity, an uncertainty, or a variableness that seems incompatible with the operation of law{a capricious climate
}{the capricious hues of the sea— Lamb
}{the capricious uncertain lease on which you and I hold life— Quiller— Couch
}{the olive is slow-growing, capricious in its yield— Huxley
}Mercurial is a synonym of the other words here discriminated only when it carries a strong implication of resemblance to the metal mercury and its fluctuations when subjected to an external influence. The word, however, also carries implications (as of swiftness, eloquence, cleverness, and volatility) derived from its earlier association with the god Mercury. Consequently when it applies to persons, their temperaments, or their natures, it usually suggests a pleasing even if baffling variability, an amazing succession of gifts capable of being displayed at will or at need, and such other qualities as sprightliness, restlessness, flashing wit, and elusive charm{the gay, gal-lant, mercurial Frenchman— Disraeli
}{I was ardent in my temperament; quick, mercurial, impetuous— Irving
}{it seems impossible that her bright and mercurial figure is no longer among us, that she will delight us no more with the keen precision and stabbing brilliance of that jewelled brain— New Republic
}Unstable, which is applicable to persons as well as to things, implies a constitutional incapacity for remaining in a fixed position mentally or emotionally as well as physically; it suggests, therefore, such fluctuations in behavior as frequent and often unjustified changes in occupation or in residence or sudden and startling changes of faith or of interests{unstable as water, thou shalt not excel— Gen 49:4
}{his nature, lamentably unstable, was not ignoble— Macaulay
}{woman's love ... is volatile, insoluble, unstable—M. L. Anderson
}{an unstable world economy . . . subjected to periods of wars, inflation, and depression— Farmer's Weekly
}Analogous words: *changeable, changeful, variable, protean, mutable: *faithless, disloyal, false, treacherous, traitorous, perfidious: volatile, frivolous, light, light-minded (see corresponding nouns at LIGHTNESS)Antonyms: constant
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
