<adj.all> unstable political conditions the tower proved to be unstable in the high wind an unstable world economy
highly or violently reactive
<adj.all> sensitive and highly unstable compounds
affording no ease or reassurance
<adj.all> a precarious truce
suffering from severe mental illness
<adj.all> of unsound mind
disposed to psychological variability
<adj.all> his rather unstable religious convictions
subject to change; variable
<adj.all> a fluid situation fraught with uncertainty everything was unstable following the coup
Unstable \Un*sta"ble\, a. [Cf. {Instable}.] Not stable; not firm, fixed, or constant; subject to change or overthrow. -- {Un*sta"ble*ness}, n. --Chaucer.
{Unstable equilibrium}. See {Stable equilibrium}, under {Stable}.
"But we didn't want to take a chance issuing bonds in an unstable market," said Richard E. Kolman, a vice president in charge of municipal underwriting at Goldman.
One of the most illuminating is to look at the track record of the dollar against the D-Mark. In the early and middle 1980s, it was violently unstable.
The outcome is uncertain, and the political situation in the Philippines is unstable.
For a country once considered one of the most unstable in South America, August will mark the seventh year of democratic rule.
Investors were reluctant to take risks before the exchange closes for a six-day holiday, while international conditions remained unstable, Arai said.
With this cooling, he calculated, the universe would slip into an unstable state that physicists call a false vacuum, during which vast amounts of energy are temporarily stored.
"I think he is very dangerous and unstable.
Superoxide is known as a free radical, a class of atoms and molecules that are missing an electron and thus are unstable.
And just yesterday, President Bush denied licenses for the export to China of U.S.-made satellite parts as a gesture of concern about the possible sale of Chinese missiles to countries in unstable regions.
It all helped an economy traditionally based on bananas, sugar and coffee weather the ups and downs of unstable agricultural markets, and made Panama by far the wealthiest country on the Central American isthmus.
Other analysts suggest that copper-consuming companies have been keeping higher inventories of copper because they fear supplies could be disrupted in politically unstable countries, such as Peru and Chile.
Lawmakers argued in their brief that U.S. forces still faced imminent hostilities because the cease-fire between the two countries is unstable.
The increased radiation measurements may have been caused by an unstable weather inversion over the region, the report said.
"A dictatorship which itself is in the midst of reforms, is very unstable.
As for France, it not only suffered tight monetary policy before September 1992, but tight and highly unstable monetary policy thereafter, reaching relative calm only in April 1993.
But then reality set in: The materials were brittle, chemically unstable and unable to carry much electricity when fashioned into wires.
Defence designers wanted to build something that was inherently unstable. Rather like a pencil balanced on your fingertip, such an aircraft can move quickly in any direction.
John Cougar Mellencamp blames his music career for his unstable family life.
I hope I will kill one Romanian (Moldovan) with each one, no matter what Yeltsin says.' The Caucasian republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are all - in varying degrees - internally unstable and engaged in inter-ethnic hostilities.
Four chimney stacks are dangerously unstable, 90 per cent of the masonry needs attention, the window frames are rotten, and many flats are damp. No local estate agents or solicitors will touch the place.
In a related development, West German Finance Minister Theo Waigel, in East Berlin on Tuesday, said quick unification is important because of the unstable situation in the Soviet Union.
Israel will be less inclined than ever to yield territory in such an unstable situation.
Evidence like this challenges the old view that capitalism is unstable and that government is therefore needed to mitigate booms and busts.
"Now, we're shifting to how companies and their employees can cope with an unstable stock market.
Others, however, contend that the oil market in general is much more vulnerable to disruptions now, partly because of the growing integration of the world economy and some politically unstable hotspots.
Population pressures threaten to disrupt political and social conditions in many nations, according to a new study that finds Japan the world's most stable nation and Mauritania the most unstable.
This is because the extra supplies of natural gas would come, at least in part, from the Middle East, thus adding to American dependence on an unstable region, he said.
The newspaper quoted one of Li's aides as saying the premier had appeared irritated and unstable recently, tossing cups and banging tables in anger.
"Think of their current unstable food situation _ it can only get worse as their agricultural sectors collapse under environmental pressure," Becker told a reporter outside the conference room.
"He reaffirmed the following: this government does not want an independent Palestinian state and he laid out the reasons, saying that such a state would be unstable and would be a threat not only to Israel but to the whole area.