Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or being an unstable and transient but relatively long-lived state of a chemical or physical system, as of a supersaturated solution or an excited atom.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In phys. ehem., having a stability of such sort that a minute impressed change of conditions may produce a disturbance not proportional to the impressed change. Pure water in a smooth vessel may be cooled a few degrees below the freezing-point without the formation of ice. The water is then in a metastable condition. If a hundredth of a grain of ice at the temperature of the freezing-point be brought in contact with the water, a certain fraction of it becomes ice, while the temperature of the whole rises to the freezing-point; and if ten or a thousand grains of ice be used, the fraction frozen and the final temperature are precisely the same. A somewhat closely analogous condition in mechanics is called an unstable equilibrium; but the word equilibrium, in chemistry, has been applied to the permanence of a given relation between two or more substances and cannot consistently be applied to the stability of a single substance.
- In thermodynamics, in a state intermediate between stable equilibrium and unstable equilibrium, but approaching stability as nearly as the conditions will permit.
Wiktionary
- adj. physics, chemistry Of or pertaining to a physical or chemical state that is relatively long-lived, but may decay to a lower energy state when slightly perturbed or through a quantum transition.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (of physical systems) continuing in its present state of equilibrium unless sufficiently disturbed to pass to a more stable state of equilibrium
Etymologies
- meta- + stable (Wiktionary)
Examples
“This spring (a period of great disappointment for our farmers) was a period of the so-called metastable conditions of rain clouds.”
“Setup or hold violations cause the output of the flip-flop to enter a symmetrically balanced transient state, called a metastable state.”
“Technetium-99m, where "m" stands for "metastable" -, one resorts to another isotope, Molybdenum-99.”
“They manipulate the water in the xylem under negative pressure - what's called a metastable liquid state - right on the verge of becoming a vapor.”
“In this case, the anchoring and hence the unfriendliness/inconvenience for speculation would also mean that the currency regime would become "metastable" as market hedging is more difficult -- but this is a minor inconvenience as one can still speculate/hedge even on a fixed peg e.g. non-deliverable forward for RMB”
“Whatever we do or don’t do any long-term metastable condition of the country will see the Taliban, not controlling the entire country - no one force will be able to do that - but wreaking the same cultural havoc as before in its strongholds.”
“(For the case of "metastable" states of excitation, these arguments must be modified analogously.)”
“Of course, before ever seeing service in useful quantities outside the lab, scientists will need to introduce impurities to make the squished xenon difluoride "metastable," rather like the ubiquitous,”
“Although the specific causes of solarization are not fully understood, there is evidence that irradiation creates unstable, or longer-lived "metastable", compounds that preferentially absorb light at the blue end of the spectrum (250 - 400 nm).”
“Thare have been similar dissussions on wether thermodynamics (equilibrium theory) can be applied to small systems of finite size (such as nanostructures), because they are in principle "metastable" (relative to bulk).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘metastable’.
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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Mat8iou's interesting words
Words I've come across & want to remember.
bloviation, elginism, panegyric, infandous, boke, pangram, quine, pareto principle, panopticon, snib, escutcheon, bokeh and 129 more...
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bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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Hana's Vocab
ipseism, jape, raphe, mullions and tran..., Olbers' Paradox, Euclidian torus, relativity of sim..., Cerenkov radiation, tachyon, superluminal, hapax legomenon, damascene and 314 more...
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Words I learned & loved in Gemmology
chatoyancy, amygdaloidal, birefraction, conchoidal, luster, adamantine, crystalline, euhedral, subhedral, anhedral, cabochon, culet and 69 more...
Tweets
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