Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Changing or varying, especially often and without discernible pattern or reason.
- adj. Fickle; faithless.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not constant; subject to change; not firm; unsteady; fickle; capricious: said chiefly of persons: as, inconstant in love or friendship.
- Synonyms Unstable, vacillating, wavering, volatile, unsettled, uncertain.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not constant; not stable or uniform; subject to change of character, appearance, opinion, inclination, or purpose, etc.; not firm; unsteady; fickle; changeable; variable; -- said of persons or things.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable.
Etymologies
- in- + constant (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Mark Twain and Will Rogers lived off the foibles of Congressmen who they described as inconstant, untrustworthy, mendacious, venal, etc, etc.”
“I have heard him called inconstant of purpose — when he deserted, for the sake of love, the hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity of purpose.”
“I know, at last, what the poet meant by that expression, though the word inconstant strikes me as hardly forcible enough.”
“I have heard him called inconstant of purpose -- when he deserted, for the sake of love, the hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity of purpose.”
“He was therefore inconstant, which is the real sin against marriage.”
“They are always called inconstant: but nothing in them changes.”
Jean Christophe: in Paris The Market-Place, Antoinette, the House
“As well might the pole star be called inconstant because it is sometimes to the east and sometimes to the west of the pointers.”
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4
“He was called inconstant, because the relative position in which he stood to the contending factions was perpetually varying.”
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4
“The manners of those who live in temperate climates are "inconstant", since "the climate has not a quality determinate enough to fix them" (SL 14.2).”
“The only other "inconstant" person in the play (Sir Thurio) is inconstant from that water-like quality in the mind that floods with the full moon, and ebbs like a neap soon after.”
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