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volatile
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  • The doctors told Mother that Shawn's injury might have altered his personality—that in the hospital, he had shown tendencies toward volatility, even violence, and that such changes might be permanent.   (source)
    volatility = being emotionally explosive
  • Now guards, staffers, and counselors converge on the quad in panic, trying to herd this volatile gathering of kids back to their places, but no one will leave.   (source)
    volatile = emotionally unstable and unpredictable
  • Perhaps his superiors wanted to rid the Imperial Guards of an unstable and venomous soldier, or perhaps they wanted to put his volatility to use.   (source)
    volatility = quickness to get angry
  • My father was a volatile, extremely complicated person, possessed of a brash demeanor that masked deep insecurities.   (source)
    volatile = emotionally unstable (quick to anger)
  • Princes, however, married women of the people to keep up the morale of our sometimes volatile nation.   (source)
    volatile = unstable (quick to anger)
  • She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament,   (source)
    volatile = emotionally explosive
  • Quite a powerful and rare metal, but like the Roman emperors, quite volatile.  Be sure never to break that blade....   (source)
    volatile = explosive (emotionally or physically)
  • “Watch out for that one,” Baz had told me on my very first day, three years ago. “Chef Vlad, he's volatile.”   (source)
    volatile = emotionally explosive
  • But if there is difficulty and volatility in the world of the Tipping Point, there is a large measure of hopefulness as well.   (source)
    volatility = quickness to change
  • "In Anger Management, ... to get used to handling things in a less volatile way."   (source)
    volatile = emotionally explosive
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  • Add in his mom's occasional volatility and the death of Mikey, which sent the entire family into depression for a couple of years, and there had been times when he wished he'd been born into a different family.   (source)
    volatility = tendency to be emotionally explosive
  • Leigh's body language changes from curious to volatile. Every inch of her tenses like a cheetah, ready to pounce.   (source)
    volatile = ready to explode (emotionally)
  • I knew him for a dangerous man with volatile, uncertain moods.   (source)
    volatile = emotionally unstable (quick to anger)
  • He still had volatile dysentery and was as weak as a blade of grass.   (source)
    volatile = explosive
  • Logan said nothing, sensing her volatile state.   (source)
    volatile = emotionally explosive
  • His baby teeth, which usually gave him an impish, playful appearance, now made him seem unpredictable, volatile.   (source)
    volatile = quick to change
  • According to members of the extended family, his moods can be dark and mercurial, although they say his famous temper has lost much of its volatility in recent years.   (source)
    volatility = quickness to get angry
  • I was drawn to the Pythagorean theorem and its promise of a universal—the ability to predict the nature of any three points containing a right angle, anywhere, always. What I knew of physics I had learned in the junkyard, where the physical world often seemed unstable, capricious. But here was a principle through which the dimensions of life could be defined, captured. Perhaps reality was not wholly volatile. Perhaps it could be explained, predicted.   (source)
    volatile = unpredictable and changing
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  • You'll still be volatile, but not as bad as before.   (source)
    volatile = prone to physically explode
  • It says that alcohol is a colorless volatile liquid   (source)
    volatile = evaporating rapidly at normal temperatures and pressures
  • Although flavors usually arise from a mixture of many different volatile chemicals, a single compound often supplies the dominant aroma.   (source)
  • Even a small amount of Imperial gold could be incredibly volatile. Exposed to too much heat or pressure, the stuff would explode with devastating impact...   (source)
    volatile = prone to physically explode
  • The act of drinking, sucking, or chewing a substance releases its volatile gases.   (source)
    volatile = evaporating rapidly at normal temperatures and pressures
  • All of these aromas are made through the same basic process: the manipulation of volatile chemicals to create a particular smell.   (source)
  • Complex aromas, like those of coffee or roasted meat, may be composed of volatile gases from nearly a thousand different chemicals.   (source)
  • Recognizing the need for flavor additives, the early food processors turned to perfume companies that had years of experience working with essential oils and volatile aromas.   (source)
  • The invention of gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers — machines capable of detecting volatile gases at low levels — vastly increased the number of flavors that could be synthesized.   (source)
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  • Next is a kitchen and a volatile Hans Junior, regarding those books on the table, where the girl often reads.†   (source)
  • In other ranges, the radiation is quite volatile and unpredictable.†   (source)
  • In 1910 there were more electric-powered cars on the streets of New York than gas-powered ones, and everyone back then assumed that electric cars were the future—they made a lot more sense than the crazy engines that used controlled explosions of volatile, toxic chemicals.†   (source)
  • Joy Thomas entered American University in Washington, D.C., in 1968, a year when she and her adopted homeland were both experiencing volatile change—Vietnam, a series of assassinations, campus unrest, rioting that tore through the nation's cities, and an American president who no longer wanted the job.†   (source)
  • She was the one who put him down to nap, who played even-tempered peacemaker to her volatile sibling.†   (source)
  • In all that time, it never entered her mind that he might turn out to be so volatile.†   (source)
  • Instead of seeing him in the old way, less competent and reliable than Ty, too volatile and even a little silly, I saw that he did his best to fit in and do his job, and also that his failure to succeed completely was actually an assertion of a different style more than anything.†   (source)
  • One question looms: Will this highly volatile substance save the world, or will it be used to create the most deadly weapon ever made?†   (source)
  • The others, apparently used to her volatile moods, paid no attention.†   (source)
  • They are more likely to explode, much more volatile, much more explosive.†   (source)
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  • Between the Stables and the Volatiles are the Ultimates.†   (source)
  • And the nation's economic depression was growing steadily worse, its labor situation more volatile.†   (source)
  • Annie was losing her hold on something very central about herself; she felt volatile, capable of rash and irrevocable acts.†   (source)
  • Not volatile enough.†   (source)
  • Scale of one to ten
    How would you rate your demise?
    Thanks for your input
    WAS I RECKLESS to rush toward such volatile nature gods?†   (source)
  • This time it was Hezekiah who grabbed Ian, butthe bushes rustled again and Geoffrey looked into the clearing, his breath momentarily catching in his throat, as a bit of fabric may catch on a thorn — he felt like a man who must walk up a rocky hill with a load of decayed and dangerously volatile explosives in his arms.†   (source)
  • The situation is rather volatile.†   (source)
  • Besides the concert room there was a bar where those who liked food and drink better than the arts could get fine wines and deliciously prepared cotelettes de volatile or boeuf Stroganoff.†   (source)
  • Simon pours half a glass of water from the bottle on his nightstand, adds twenty drops of sal volatile — a medication he always carries with him on his afternoon visits, in case of any similar flimsiness on the part of Grace Marks, who is said to be prone to fainting — and, supporting Mrs. Humphrey with one arm, holds the glass to her lips.†   (source)
  • It was as if time itself had become dynamic and volatile, adding to the seeming chaotic but precisely managed heavenly display.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX — Volatile†   (source)
  • Jeanine would not trust anyone, particularly not a volatile Dauntless, to speak on her behalf.†   (source)
  • Paul was Jacob's most volatile pack brother.†   (source)
  • It was into this volatile environment that I walked one evening.†   (source)
  • I'm very volatile, for instance.†   (source)
  • There is a place in the woods that borders the west of this town, and that place was sacred ground, sacred and volatile ground long before Lazarus Twisse sought it out.†   (source)
  • Masondo could be a volatile fellow, and he was vehement in his assertions that no tigers had ever been found in Africa.†   (source)
  • Jordan had been fired from another police force in the area for excessive use of force, and was found "unfit" to serve as a police officer in a psychological review, in part, the therapist wrote, because of his volatile temper.†   (source)
  • Her face was so small, so volatile.†   (source)
  • The most volatile current debate among American school administrators, teachers, parents, and students concerns "high-stakes" testing.†   (source)
  • In addition to poor suicidal Connie, there were several bipolar arsonists, an angry and volatile bank robber, a woman who had written a letter threatening to assassinate John Ashcroft, and a tiny pregnant girl who would seat herself next to me and start running her hands through my hair, crooning I saw more temper tantrums and freakouts in a few weeks than I had in many months in Danbury, all of which the CO basically ignored.†   (source)
  • Volatile, yes, and very quick to dismiss my advice.†   (source)
  • He was feared and admired for his fistfighting skills, drop-of-a-hat volatility, thundering bass voice, and daring.†   (source)
  • Pasha stood two stories tall and was surrounded by an enormous concrete wall, the house of a wealthy doctor who left with his family when Somalia became too volatile for them.†   (source)
  • From the stories they've told me about their father, I can just say that it seems he drank a lot, fought a lot, and had volatile mood swings that worried all of them.†   (source)
  • Puller methodically pored over the site, dusting for and lifting prints, separating potentially volatile substances from each other, and photographing and tagging all of it.†   (source)
  • ""In one of the world's most volatile regions, "[Mortenson's] work already is making a difference," Richard concluded.†   (source)
  • After she had had some sal volatile and sat still for a few minutes, she said there was nothing the matter with her except a few bruises.†   (source)
  • One by one, Raleigh and I laid out Nicholas Jenks's connections to the three double murders: the champagne found at the first scene; his involvement in Sparrow Ridge Vineyards; his volatile relationship with the third bride, Kathy Voskuhl.†   (source)
  • All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower.†   (source)
  • Nicolas was also close to the little girl's heart, but there was something ephemeral and volatile about him.†   (source)
  • Bad midterm grades, some comments from teachers and student tutors about him being volatile and depressed.†   (source)
  • Fund managers understand the balance sheets and market momentum driving volatile stocks.†   (source)
  • She could be volatile, and Jeremy had finally gotten a taste of it.†   (source)
  • Jack's birthday was an occasion for champagne and the hot, dog-day evening was even more volatile than usual.†   (source)
  • I remembered as a child looking deep into his eyes, and sensing that Dan was like Mother—a person with a volatile temper that could erupt at any moment.†   (source)
  • From their volatile entrance into the meadow, however, he inferred that they had been flushed from the trees by something—or someone—that had frightened them.†   (source)
  • We were heading to a remote forward operating base or FOB in one of the most volatile regions of eastern Afghanistan.†   (source)
  • Many questioned why the president would go to Europe at such a volatile time.†   (source)
  • But you cannot preserve the memory of applause; it is too volatile, too perishable.†   (source)
  • If tak is that volatile then a small electric charge could set off a chain reaction and…boom.†   (source)
  • Many recognized that if the abolitionists were permitted to spread their emotionally volatile dogma and rage, it would only be a matter of time before the country degenerated into some sort of civil war.†   (source)
  • Like millions of Americans, I was dealt a hand of intense emotions and volatile moods.†   (source)
  • But I felt somewhat protective of him, and I feared he might provoke Captain Ono, who was known in the camp for his sometimes volatile outbursts, a mien which should have seemed quite odd for a medical doctor but somehow didn't seem so at the time.†   (source)
  • A man is placed in a highly volatile, maximum stress situation for a long period of time, the entire period in deep cover.†   (source)
  • With the air so thin and volatile, Alessand. ro began to smell his own clothes.†   (source)
  • In truth, the giant leader was amused by the spectacle, but it understood the danger of angering the volatile Akar Kessell.†   (source)
  • Hill was a nervous, volatile, brilliant man.†   (source)
  • While it was true that he'd tried twice to kill me and had very nearly succeeded both times, I couldn't help thinking that he'd been a victim himself, a victim of a volatile mixture of fundamentalist extremism and parental hypocrisy.†   (source)
  • In this volatile corner of the Mediterranean, kingdoms and empires came and went like the winter rains.†   (source)
  • Mining for volatiles?†   (source)
  • He looked like an immature imitation of a Western badman holding up the Wells Fargo stage, but he seemed overly excited and Dan guessed him the most volatile and dangerous of the three.†   (source)
  • I could not understand how my adored Miriam Bookbinder, or Julie Conn, the volatile high school athletic coach whom everyone idolized, could survive such a Sabbath environment.†   (source)
  • As I say, the situation is rather volatile.†   (source)
  • The mine had a lot of the solvent derived from coal tar, but it was too volatile.†   (source)
  • Marley was young and wired, with the attention span of algae and the volatility of nitroglycerine.†   (source)
  • "Recently, however, the Hyperion issue has caused the Ultimates to move toward the Volatiles" views.†   (source)
  • Very young vampires are volatile, wild, and almost impossible to control.†   (source)
  • Some distant, rational part of my mind thought: of course, to make it volatile.†   (source)
  • The Volatiles are the force behind the Secession three centuries ago.†   (source)
  • The pressure cap is also essential, as the liquid is extremely volatile.†   (source)
  • Nearly ten gallons of a volatile transporting agent: Regim Ignaul Neratum.†   (source)
  • Because he knew just how volatile his temper could be, he poured a cup of coffee.†   (source)
  • "Best you try that with someone less …. volatile," Branna suggested.†   (source)
  • Amanda took it as good-naturedly as she did most things having to do with her volatile daughter.†   (source)
  • Chunks will be blown out by the low volatile material beneath.†   (source)
  • He would see me trembling and I would hear his loathsome, volatile approaches cutting off my exits.†   (source)
  • The more volatile material was mostly burned off on reentry.†   (source)
  • We're also planning on making a sort of …. volatiles asteroid.†   (source)
  • This time, though, we want to capture the volatiles.†   (source)
  • You'd have to scoop out a big container in the middle to get enough volatiles.'†   (source)
  • I was afraid of losing all the low volatiles.†   (source)
  • As it heats, the lowest volatility material ….†   (source)
  • And a lot of the volatiles are being lost to sublimation.†   (source)
  • It's mostly low volatiles so far, obviously.†   (source)
  • "People tend to, and I don't want to exaggerate this, vanish in a puff of volatiles."†   (source)
  • But it was apparent that you'd started with too few volatiles."†   (source)
  • Fortunately, this separator is concentrated on the low volatiles.†   (source)
  • I'd guess it had sonic volatiles that hadn't been detected.†   (source)
  • But, as I mentioned, are think they got the mix of solids to volatiles wrong.†   (source)
  • But I could not escape the feeling that what I was really seeing was a weariness with life; the spark which had once made her such a lively, and at times volatile person seemed now to have gone.†   (source)
  • When I made up my mind to go to Hyperion, the Volatiles killed me with the clear intention of obliterating my AI existence if my cybrid again made that decision.†   (source)
  • Before helping me limp to the Medica, Elodin made it clear that anyone stupid enough to jump off a roof was too reckless to be allowed to hold a spoon in his presence, let alone study something as "profound and volatile" as naming.†   (source)
  • The Core drops tidbits of revelations to the Hegemony when it serves the Core's purposes-sometimes to aid the Volatiles, sometimes the Stables, but always to please the Ultimates.†   (source)
  • The result has been two futures-two realities if you will-one in which the Shrike scourge soon to be released on the Web and interstellar humanity is a weapon from the Core-dominated future, a retroactive first strike from the Volatiles who rule the galaxy millennia hence.†   (source)
  • The other reality sees the Shrike invasion, the coming interstellar war, and the other products of the Time Tombs" opening as a human fist struck back through time, a final, twilight effort by the Ousters, ex-colonials, and other small bands of humans who escaped the Volatiles" extinction programs."†   (source)
  • Even as he watched, a star moved above the limb of the planet, laser weapons winked their ruby morse, and a gutted ship section half a kilometer away across the gulf of vacuum from Kassad burst again in a gout of vaporized metal, freezing volatiles, and tumbling black specks which Kassad realized were bodies.†   (source)
  • Charged down the mountain as fast as we could, given the limits of the treacherous path and Bronwyn's volatile cargo.†   (source)
  • More volatile and flammable materials.'†   (source)
  • The scene reminded me of "quiet rooms" in mental hospitals, where patients sometimes go to act out their problems and volatile emotions.†   (source)
  • When I heard what you told Alice—what she saw herself—when I realized that you had to put your life in the hands of werewolves, immature, volatile, the worst thing out there besides Victoria herself—he shuddered and the gush of words halted for a short second.†   (source)
  • A volatile and opinionated woman whose intellect does not match her considerable capacity for rage, Mary Lincoln is short and round, wears her hair parted straight down the middle, and prefers to be called "Madame President," which some believe is pretentious, to say the least.†   (source)
  • That's why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable, because it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable.†   (source)
  • Juma fervor combined with the explosive news from Afghanistan could be a volatile combination for a foreigner caught in the crossfire.†   (source)
  • …was young and stood six feet tall, irrefutable proof that Ferula's curse came true and that his body shrank in the same proportions as his soul; my uncles Jaime and Nicolas, one dark, somber, gigantic, and vulnerable, the other lean, graceful, volatile, and smiling; also Nana and the del Valle great-grandparents before they were killed in the accident; everyone, in short, except the noble Jean de Satigny, of whom no scientific trace remains and whose very existence I have begun to…†   (source)
  • Even in Lexington, tension had been building for weeks, the newspapers full of war and protests and unrest, the world volatile and shifting.†   (source)
  • By the end of the first week, during those times he could control his volatile temper, he was already able to deflect many of Drizzt's cunning attacks.†   (source)
  • Pair an intrusive, usually ignorant, and often suspicious press corps with an intensely private trainer, and you have a volatile mix.†   (source)
  • Alessandro had contrary and volatile opinions and did a good job of justifying them even when they were totally absurd.†   (source)
  • She's been killing herself, her lifeblood channeled through scriptural pieties and long-shot hopes for Cedric's future, leaving her own urges untended and volatile.†   (source)
  • Henry Brandon of London's Sunday Times is so sure Kennedy's visit will be volatile that he himself is making the trip just to chronicle the tension.†   (source)
  • Of course I never knew that he and Liv Crawford were in a relationship, but even just the idea appeals to me; I know they say opposites attract, but in this case I imagine that their similarities in character made for an exciting and volatile mix, ready fuel for the fire.†   (source)
  • It was only after the meeting was breaking up that there came the developments which even my volatile suspicions hadn't allowed me to foresee.†   (source)
  • Most walked around in a state of critical dehydration and malnutrition and as a result were irritable, volatile, light-headed, bleary, nauseated, gaunt, and crampy.†   (source)
  • A few steps onto the sun-sparkled blacktop, Cedric already feels himself trying to place some long volatile emotions, temporarily stabilized, in cold storage.†   (source)
  • First, factional paralysis made Italy weak on the international stage, and, second, it exaggerated inconsistency and volatility in internal matters.†   (source)
  • Two previous meetings had been adjourned because of their volatile debates, and Regis couldn't let this council disintegrate before he had told them of the impending barbarian attack.†   (source)
  • "A politically volatile area, rural Pakistan is a breeding ground for terrorists who share anti-American sentiment," Richard explained.†   (source)
  • He uses the Profumo affair to explain the potentially volatile link between his presidency and King's crusade.†   (source)
  • Nothing had alarmed me quite so much since I had come to the Institute as the volatile dissonance of that exquisite soundlessness.†   (source)
  • Cedric surveys the two of them flirting as he tries to pick through the last hour of conversation, in an effort to isolate what's gnawing at him, making him feel volatile, like he's pressing something down.†   (source)
  • "That the natural world is infinitely more reliable than the world of man," Alessandro said, "and that in our short lives we must have volatility or we will not know motion.†   (source)
  • Bo Maybank had told me that Pearce had taken the best the E Company cadre could throw at him but the pressure on him was immense and his volatile temper was working against him.†   (source)
  • I knew, even then, that there was an inner hardness, often volatile anger beneath the outwardly amiable, thoughtful, carefully controlled demeanor of John Kennedy.†   (source)
  • Mortenson's approach hinges on a simple idea: that by building secular schools and helping to promote education—particularly for girls—in the world's most volatile war zone, support for the Taliban and other extremist sects eventually will dry up.†   (source)
  • When she filters through memories as she did on today's bus ride it reminds her how she's invested everything in Lavar-all her hopes-giving their relationship a ferocious intensity, almost as volatile in some ways as the house she grew up in.†   (source)
  • Then I added another chemical, which was not marked, which itself was an unknown, though it was a colorless liquid without any volatile characteristics of its own.†   (source)
  • Idefine myself in this way: I am the son of Thomas Patrick McLean of Savannah, Georgia, a volatile, brawling man who attended Benedictine High School and Carolina Military Institute, and as a Marine captain won a Navy Cross for his valor under fire during the invasion of Iwo Jima.†   (source)
  • I fell asleep that night thinking of Tradd's ineffable sadness, of Mark's gruff gentleness, of Pig's volatility and blind loyalty, of my virginity, of my pleasure in talking in bed at night, of secrets between roommates, of my inability to tell boys who loved me that I loved them.†   (source)
  • Relatively low melting point compared to iron or nickel but also very viscous and low volatility even in vacuum.†   (source)
  • The removal of the low volatiles, the higher portions of the periodic table in general, will permit contraction of the high melting, generally " denser, materials.†   (source)
  • Even with the blown-off volatiles and extracted "other," the ball was still nineteen million cubic meters, a sphere three hundred and thirty-one meters in diameter.†   (source)
  • The volatiles are all burned off.†   (source)
  • I felt this not only because I was afraid of getting sucked toward the epicenter of such a volatile, destructive relationship, but because I had to confront the hard fact that I, Stingo, had other fish to fry.†   (source)
  • He was a bit shorter and distinctly more stocky and fleshed out than Nathan, and of course he was older, resembling his brother in an arresting way; yet the difference between the two was quickly apparent, for where Nathan was all nervous energy, volatile, unpredictable, Larry was calm and soft-spoken, almost phlegmatic, with a reassuring manner which may have been part of his doctor's make-up but which I really think was due to some essential solidity or decency of character.†   (source)
  • Her volatile spirits shot up from deepest depression to excited happiness.†   (source)
  • His character was weak and volatile— he hated effort, and was obstinate only in cursing ill-fortune.†   (source)
  • I am volatile for one, rigid for another, angular as an icicle in silver, or voluptuous as a candle flame in gold.†   (source)
  • The most volatile races, such as the Italians, often danced for joy, whirled each other around, pirouetted in an ecstasy: Swedes sometimes just looked at each other, breathing through open mouths like a panting dog; Jews wept, jabbered, almost put each other's eyes out with the recklessness of their darting gestures; Poles roared and gripped each other at arm's length as though they meant to tear a handful of flesh; and after one pecking kiss, the English might be seen gravitating…†   (source)
  • …chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest, carefully, the paper old and faded and falling to pieces, the writing faded, almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for, but nothing happens; you re-read, tedious and intent, poring, making sure that you have forgotten nothing, made no miscalculation; you bring them together again…†   (source)
  • …in a summer garden—the same two serene phantoms who seem to watch, hover, impartial attentive and quiet, above and behind the inexplicable thunderhead of interdictions and defiances and repudiations out of which the rocklike Sutpen and the volatile and violent Henry flashed and glared and ceased; —Henry who up to that time had never even been to Memphis, who had never been away from home before that September when he went to the University with his countrified clothes and his saddle…†   (source)
  • With some misgivings, he joined Frau Zimmermann in her volatile, edgy good cheer.†   (source)
  • Lydgate made her drink a dose of sal volatile.†   (source)
  • The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.†   (source)
  • Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.†   (source)
  • Carried away by his volatile temperament, the Canadian put great animation into it.†   (source)
  • "I'm afraid you'll think me very 'volatile.'†   (source)
  • Raymond is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night.†   (source)
  • The phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have been about half-full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some volatile ether.†   (source)
  • She did not, indeed, expect Lily to remain equally immovable: she had all the American guardian's indulgence for the volatility of youth.†   (source)
  • As she read the four-square undertaking, never before seen by her, into which her own and Jude's names were inserted, and by which that very volatile essence, their love for each other, was supposed to be made permanent, her face seemed to grow painfully apprehensive.†   (source)
  • In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of centuries.†   (source)
  • And yet the knowledge that, within this new and strange chrysalis, it was still Odette that lurked, still the same volatile temperament, artful and evasive, was enough to keep Swann seeking, with as much passion as ever, to captivate her.†   (source)
  • …used until then, and without much suffering, for his intelligence had not embodied in them anything of the past save fictitious extracts which preserved none of the reality, he now recovered everything that had fixed unalterably the peculiar, volatile essence of that lost happiness; he could see it all; the snowy, curled petals of the chrysanthemum which she had tossed after him into his carriage, which he had kept pressed to his lips, the address 'Maison Doree,' embossed on the…†   (source)
  • …to leave upon my lips when I was in bed and just going to sleep I had to take with me from the dining-room to my own, and to keep inviolate all the time that it took me to undress, without letting its sweet charm be broken, without letting its volatile essence diffuse itself and evaporate; and just on those very evenings when I must needs take most pains to receive it with due formality, I had to snatch it, to seize it instantly and in public, without even having the time or being…†   (source)
  • And if, in his judgment, Febvre came below Thiron, or Delaunay below Coquelin, the sudden volatility which the name of Coquelin, forsaking its stony rigidity, would engender in my mind, in which it moved upwards to the second place, the rich vitality with which the name of Delaunay would suddenly be furnished, to enable it to slip down to fourth, would stimulate and fertilise my brain with a sense of bradding and blossoming life.†   (source)
  • —"the mud of Paris is particularly stinking; it must contain a great deal of volatile and nitric salts.†   (source)
  • She was accordingly supported into the coach, and there 'kept up' (as Miss Snevellicci said) with perpetual sniffs of SAL VOLATILE and sips of brandy and other gentle stimulants, until they reached the manager's door, which was already opened by the two Master Crummleses, who wore white cockades, and were decorated with the choicest and most resplendent waistcoats in the theatrical wardrobe.†   (source)
  • …could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, and when the Squire preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his visitors' backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table—a choice exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober business hours, became intense and bitter over cards and brandy, shuffled before his adversary's deal with a glare of suspicion, and turned up a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if in a world where such…†   (source)
  • Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character.†   (source)
  • 'I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,' Alice suggested: 'or some sal-volatile.'†   (source)
  • Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?'†   (source)
  • He could distinguish amid the perfumes of the roses and heliotropes in the flower-stands, the sharp and fragrant odor of volatile salts, and he noticed in one of the chased cups on the mantle-piece the countess's smelling-bottle, taken from its shagreen case, and exclaimed in a tone of uneasiness, as he entered,—"My dear mother, have you been ill during my absence?"†   (source)
  • But, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away, or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum.†   (source)
  • Adolph and Rosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, fickle and childish, as they generally were, they were soft-hearted and full of feeling; and, while Miss Ophelia presided over the general details of order and neatness, it was their hands that added those soft, poetic touches to the arrangements, that took from the death-room the grim and ghastly air which too often marks a New England funeral.†   (source)
  • Have you any salts — volatile salts?†   (source)
  • There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile, free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs.†   (source)
  • The universe is fluid and volatile.†   (source)
  • The singular appearance of this cavalcade not only attracted the curiosity of Wamba, but excited even that of his less volatile companion.†   (source)
  • It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn.†   (source)
  • That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarch nearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately, was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justify his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show such recklessness as naturally went along with a position unriveted by family ties or a strict profession.†   (source)
  • The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought.†   (source)
  • Mrs Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed all the tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to restore her to anything like a state of calmness; not to mention the assiduity of Mr Kenwigs, who held a fat smelling-bottle to his lady's nose, until it became matter of some doubt whether the tears which coursed down her face were the result of feelings or SAL VOLATILE.†   (source)
  • 'Ain't I volatile?' she added, as a commentary on this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed.†   (source)
  • In its printed form, thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible, indestructible.†   (source)
  • She resigned no domestic function to her daughter; and the matron's blooming good-natured face, with the two volatile pink strings floating from her fine throat, and her cheery manners to husband and children, was certainly among the great attractions of the Vincy house—attractions which made it all the easier to fall in love with the daughter.†   (source)
  • Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?'†   (source)
  • Aunt Bulstrode was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly to avoid Mrs. Vincy's volatility.†   (source)
  • Ain't I volatile, Mr. Copperfield?'†   (source)
  • I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the 'volatile' expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting.†   (source)
  • Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately the agent and reagent of attraction.†   (source)
  • And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice.†   (source)
  • With him he brought a jub* of malvesie, *jug And eke another full of fine vernage, <6> And volatile,* as aye was his usage: *wild-fowl And thus I let them eat, and drink, and play, This merchant and this monk, a day or tway.†   (source)
  • Yet perhaps the virtue of those reverend sages was too strict for the corrupt and libertine manners of a court: and we often find by experience, that young men are too opinionated and volatile to be guided by the sober dictates of their seniors.†   (source)
  • …iron with fire; If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear; If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite, Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone In Aaron's breast-plate, and a stone besides Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen, That stone, or like to that which here below Philosophers in vain so long have sought, In vain, though by their powerful art they bind Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound In various shapes old Proteus from the sea, Drained through a limbeck to his native form.†   (source)
  • The sum of his discourse was to this effect: "That about forty years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot.†   (source)
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