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Volatile   /vˈɑlətəl/   Listen
Volatile

noun
1.
A volatile substance; a substance that changes readily from solid or liquid to a vapor.



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"Volatile" Quotes from Famous Books



... was sure the volatile American would give me no peace until I had done so; and then, having looked up, I promptly forgot the ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... been exposed to the charms of many women, and his special interest in Phillida amounted only to a lively curiosity. Always susceptible to the charm of a woman's presence, this susceptibility had been acted on from so many sides as to make his interest in women superficial and volatile. The man who is too much interested in women to be specially interested in a woman is pretty sure not to marry at all, or to ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... turning to me, "this is the boot-room, where you will have to put on and take off your boots whenever you go out or come in. This boy is going out, and will take you into the playground with him," and away she went, leaving me in the hands of the volatile Flanagan. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... knowing all the village people, and takes the children with her, so that they really know the village-folk all round; they are certainly tremendously happy and interested in everything. Of course they are volatile in their tastes, but I rather encourage that. I know that in the little old moral books the idea was that nothing should be taken up by children, unless it was done thoroughly and perseveringly; but I had rather that they had a wide experience; the time to select and settle down upon a ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... stations and industrial plants and from trucks transiting Austria between northern and southern Europe natural hazards: NA international agreements: party to - Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Wetlands; signed, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... Treatise on the Fabrication of Volatile and Fat Varnishes, Lacquers, Siccatives and ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... Leaving the volatile earl to put what construction pleased him best on this last sententious remark, he resumed his march after George, and was ushered, at last, into an ante-room near the audience-chamber. Count L'Estrange, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... she. "Is it because I chid you, child? Nay, you need not take that to heart; it is just my way: I can bear anything but my hair pulled." With this she rose and poured some drops of sal-volatile into water, and put it to her secret rival's lips: it was kindly done, but with that sort of half contemptuous and thoroughly cold pity women are apt to show to women, and especially when one of them is Mistress ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... greatest illuminating effect from a given bulk of gas is obtained by mixing it with the requisite proportion of oxygen, and holding in the flame of the burning mixture a piece of some solid infusible and non-volatile substance, such as lime. This becomes heated to whiteness, and emits an intense light know as the Drummond light, used already for special purposes of illumination. By supplying oxygen in pipes laid by the side of the ordinary gas mains, it would be possible to fix ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... ways, which grieved and vexed Philip, made his wife the more attractive to Hester. Brought up among Quakers, although not one herself, she admired and respected the staidness and outward peacefulness common amongst the young women of that sect. Sylvia, whom she had expected to find volatile, talkative, vain, and wilful, was quiet and still, as if she had been born a Friend: she seemed to have no will of her own; she served her mother and child for love; she obeyed her husband in all things, and never appeared to pine after gaiety or pleasure. And yet at times ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... name for a girl. Martha herself fixed all that by the simple process of signing herself Marcia in her twelfth year and forever after. Marcia was a throw-back to her grandmother Winter—quick-tongued, restless, volatile. The boy was an admirable mixture of the best qualities of his father and mother; slow-going, like Hermie Slocum, but arriving surely at his goal, like his mother. With something of her driving force ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the council. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved goddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was enchanted with a ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the distress of a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the back of a bee-stung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and had left no sign. She moved straight to the council-table, and stood. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... retained beneath the robe, precisely as if she wore a crinoline with an incense-burner beneath it, which would be a far more simple way of performing the operation. She now begins to perspire freely in the hot-air bath, and the pores of the skin being thus opened and moist, the volatile oil from the smoke of the burning perfumes ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... with some Brazilian tribes. After burying food, utensils, arms, etc., with the body, a month after death the body was disinterred, put in a pan over a fire, the volatile substances driven off, the black residue reduced to powder and mixed with water and ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... homely one where they told stories of an afternoon, and were not ashamed to confess among themselves to personal weaknesses and follies, knowing well that such secrets would go no further. But he could not tell this. So volatile and intangible was the story that to convey it in words would have been as hard as ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... is Washington! And here at dinner are the diplomatic representatives of all the nations. That is the British ambassador, that stolid-faced, distinguished-looking, elderly man; and this is the French ambassador, dapper, volatile, plus-correct; here Russia's highest representative wags a huge, blond beard; and yonder is the phlegmatic German ambassador. Scattered around the table, brilliant splotches of color, are the uniformed envoys of the Orient—the smaller the country the more brilliant the splotch. It is a state ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... because he appeared to them the only obstacle between themselves, and the supreme authority. All valued him as their present preserver, and all hated him as their future impediment. Such were the conflicting sentiments entertained towards Mirabeau, during the last incidents of his eccentric and volatile career. And in the midst of so many antagonistic interests, he alone remained unshaken and unappalled, his oratory rendering him still the mouth-piece of the Revolution, his duplicity its diplomatist, and his intellectual contrivance its statesman. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... streets and public places since his arrival in London, a noisy, empty interchange of chaff and laughter that he had been at a loss to account for. The Londoner is not well adapted for the irresponsible noisiness of jesting tongue that bubbles up naturally in a Southern race, and the effort to be volatile was the more noticeable because it so obviously was an effort. Turning over the pages of a book that told the story of Bulgarian social life in the days of Turkish rule, Yeovil had that morning come across a passage that seemed to throw some light ...
— When William Came • Saki

... the government measure for closing the port of Boston. I did not bear him any great grudge for that, but I could not give myself to his monument with such cordial affection as I felt for that of the versatile and volatile old letter-writer James Howell, which also I found in that triforium, half-hidden behind a small organ, with an epitaph too undecipherable in the dimness for my patience. It was so satisfactory to find this, after looking in vain for any ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... the hearts of his people, uncertain even of the continued favor of the volatile monster who was lounging then in his Caprian retreat, it was with the idea of pleasing the one, of flattering the other, that he had instituted the games. For here in his brand-new Tiberias, a city which he had built ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... ten years of exile, the once gay, volatile Miss Milner lay dying with but one request to make—that her daughter should not suffer for her sin. Sandford was with her; by all the influence he ever had over Lord Elmwood, by his prayers, by his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... overview: The Turkish Cypriot economy has roughly 30% of the per capita GDP of the south, and economic growth tends to be volatile, given the north's relative isolation, bloated public sector, reliance on the Turkish lira, and small market size. Agriculture and services, together, employ more than half of the work force. The Turkish Cypriot ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... so?—but yet it haunts me like a phantom: I know it is unsubstantial and vain; but it will be present—will intrude its horrors on my mind—will whisper that my brother, as volatile as ardent, would have divided his energies amid a hundred objects. It was I who taught him to concentrate them, and to gage all on this dreadful and desperate cast. Oh that I could recollect that I had but ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... and tearing to pieces and placing embankments so that the volatile and fugacious species should be as it were caught in a net and held behind the hedges of definitions, and he considered that superior things were, by participation, and according to similitude, reflected in those inferior, and these in those according to their greater dignity ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... their tasks, naturally and uncomplainingly, and he could never understand why all women should not feel in the same way. Then he was fond of solitude, and looked upon a visitor as an emissary of the devil; and he failed to see that a gay, pleasure-loving, volatile, sparkling girl could not share his feelings. So he shut her up remorselessly,—never dreaming that he was cruel. That she was fond of admiration was nothing to him, though he was fond of it himself in his own grim way; he was the central ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... you are not attending. Here are two licenses permitting two pigs to go to market in Lancashire. Attend Alexander. I have had no end of trouble in getting these papers from the policeman." Pigling Bland listened gravely; Alexander was hopelessly volatile. ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... unfortunate accident, and the pitiable state of the rest of the daring explorers, were enough to stop any further questions and expressions of astonishment. On one side of me the frightened Miss X——, using my nose as a cork for her sal-volatile bottle; on the other the "God's warrior" covered with blood as if returning from a battle with the Afghans; further on, poor Mulji with a dreadful headache. Narayan and the colonel, happily for our party, did not experience anything ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... the Writers of a neighbouring Nation; which now shall have an Opportunity to receive English Bullion in Exchange for its own Dross, which has so long passed current among us in Pieces abounding with all the Levities of its volatile Inhabitants.} The reigning Depravity of the Times has yet left Virtue many Votaries. Of their Protection you need not despair. May every head-strong Libertine whose Hands you reach, be reclaimed; and every tempted Virgin who reads you, imitate the Virtue, and meet the Reward of the ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... Capacity for Business, are in all Governments advanc'd to Posts of Trust and great Employments in the State, while meer Wits are regarded as Men of the lowest Merit, and accordingly are promoted to the meaner and less profitable Places, being look'd on, by reason of their Inapplication and volatile Temper, as unfit ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore

... down his withered cheek as he dashed it away with his dripping sleeve. "I am a weak old fool," said he, endeavouring to smile; for there was a volatile gaiety in his disposition, which his sorrows had subdued, but not extinguished. "Yet, my boy! my poor dear Willie!—I shall never—no, I shall never see him again!" Here he again wept; and had nature not denied me that luxury, I should have wept ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... thimble, told him he was naughty, and said we must not suffer merit to think itself neglected. Clifton began to sing Britons strike home; which he soon changed to Rule Britannia: sure tokens that he was not pleased; for these are the tunes with which he always sings away his volatile choler. But one of the columns, on which I raise my system is a determination to persist in the right. Frank Henley was therefore invited, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... anything but flesh, if such there are, which I very much doubt.] Milk, although manufactured in the body of an animal, is a vegetable substance; this is shown by analysis; it readily turns acid, and far from showing traces of any volatile alkali like animal matter, it gives a neutral ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... by that backward glance as she convoyed Helen to her room the previous night had proved altogether ineffective since their talk on the veranda. He did not stop to ask himself why such a woman, volatile, fickle, blown this way and that by social zephyrs, should champion the cause of romance. He simply thanked Heaven for it, nor sought other explanation than was given by his unwavering belief in the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... stored up in water at the ordinary temperature. One ton of coal will make 15 tons of ice, and yet only about 1 per cent. of the power used is utilized, these machines being especially wasteful of heat. The work is done through the medium of some volatile fluid, like ether or ammonia, or by the use of previously cooled air. Raoul Pictet, who advocates the employment of another fluid—sulphurous acid solution—says that every machine must comply with five ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... examination, to which the instrument had been privately subjected by Master Jacky the evening before; in the course of which examination the curious boy, standing below the barometer, did, after much trouble, manage to cut the bulb which held the mercury. That volatile metal, being set free, at once leaped into its liberator's bosom, and gushed down between his body and his clothes ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... afford a very much more solid support to the everyday life of this world, than the constant carnival brilliance of her sister; and she found it oppressive to have to appear perpetually in carnival spirits, when she craved for those more sober moods in which her less volatile virtues could make ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... intercourse which had for him nothing but distress, and his volatile acquaintances were perhaps the first to set him the example. Often in his solitary walks he stopped afar off to gaze upon the sports which none ever solicited him to share; and as the shout of laughter and of happy hearts came, peal after peal, upon his ear, he turned enviously, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Power hurled headlong. 2. Volatile he was. 3. Victories, indeed, they were. 4. Of noble race the lady came. 5. Slowly and sadly we laid him down. 6. Once again we'll sleep secure. 7. This double office the participle performs. 8. That gale I well remember. 9. Churlish he often seemed. 10. One strong thing I find ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... the day lies in more direct caricature, and our volatile friend Punch does the needful in his wicked sallies of wit, and his fertile pencil. His sharp rubs are perhaps more effective to John Bull's temper, who can take a blow with Punch's truncheon and bear no malice after it,—the heavy lectures of the ancients are not so well ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... these precautions, if the babe should still suffer, "One of the best and safest remedies for flatulence is Sal volatile,—a tea-spoonful of a solution of one drachm to an ounce and a half of water" [Footnote: Sir Charles Locock, in a Letter to the Author Since Sir Charles did me the honour of sending me, for publication, the above prescription for flatulence, a new "British ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... half-waking, and not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers rural circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady Drogheda, that perfect piece of artifice; of how exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to the tips of her polished finger-nails! and how she always seemed to flit about this world as joyously, alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... had sent below for his medicine-bag and had given Mrs. Luke some sal volatile and smelling-salts, said he thought the best thing to do would be for him to lend them some money and put them ashore at Penzance with Matthew. He also wrote a letter for Luke to take with him to a friend the Doctor had in the town of Penzance who, it was hoped, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... volatile, capricious, but generous as the day. Be open with her; tell her why you leave Oakhurst and how impossible it is ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... are mentioned, without a prefix, the fixed or fatty oils are always understood. The volatile or essential oils are a distinct class. Occasionally, the fixed oils are called hydrocarbons, but hydrocarbon oils are quite different and consist of carbon and hydrogen alone. Of these, petroleum is incapable of ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan

... confronted by a Frenchman, affable, volatile, affectionate. "Ah cher ami, do not leave me with the abruptness. You desolate mon coeur. Alors—return ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... it?" said Constance springing up, and adding in a most lack-a-daisical aside to her mother, "(Mamma!—the fowling piece!)—Our last vinegar hardly comes under the appellation; and you don't expect to find anything volatile in this ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... round the city He carols wild and free Some sweet unmeaning ditty In many a changing key; And each succeeding verse is Commingled with the curses Of those whose sleep disperses Like sal volatile. ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... society. When the famous singer, John Abell, was in Salisbury, he gave a concert at the palace, and Catharine Trotter was so enchanted that she rode out after him six miles to Tisbury to hear him sing again at Lord Arundell of Wardour's house. She had a great appreciation of the Bishop's "volatile activity." It is now that the name of Locke first occurs in her correspondence, and we gather that she came into some personal contact with him through a member of the Bishop's family—George Burnet of Kemney, in Aberdeenshire—probably a cousin, with whom she now cultivated an ardent intellectual ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... very beautiful volatile young lady exclaim, with something very like glee in her look and tone, after reading a letter she had received by the post, with its ominous black bordering and seal—"Grandmamma is dead! We shall have to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... being blown up, although his daily life was certainly a continuous exposure to that risk. Destiny has a constant passion for the incongruous, and it was George's lot to manipulate wholesale quantities of terrific and volatile explosives in safety, and to be laid low by an accident so commonplace and inconsequent that it was a comedy. Fate had reserved for him the final insult of riding him down under the wheels of one of those juggernauts at which he had once shouted "Git a hoss!" Nevertheless, Fate's ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... Nervous Force, or Nervous Ether, is clearly a very volatile, and at the same time a very searching fluid. It can easily pass through the skin from a nerve in one person to a nerve in another. There is no difficulty about that; the difficulty is to set up a rapid enough vibration to whirl the current through!" He said that in meditative fashion: he was clearly ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... seclusion he saw practised by the English on such occasions. However consonant to our notions of happiness, and however conducive to our enjoyment this custom be—and I have strong doubts upon the subject —it certainly prospered ill with the volatile Frenchman, who pined for Paris, its cafes, its boulevards, its maisons de jeu, and its soirees. His days were passed in looking from the deep and narrow windows of some oak-framed room upon the bare and heath-clad moors, or watching the cloud's ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... for above everything was a definite policy for war, and this he could not get the leave of Bethmann to lay down, nor could he get the volatile Emperor to stick to definite conceptions of it. For coast defense he had a supreme contempt. The great German Army would take care of this, so far as invasion was concerned, and an adequate battle-fleet would do the rest. It is noticeable that ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... a white greatcoat, and consequently talked loud'—(there is something very delicious in that CONSEQUENTLY). He wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... young, volatile reader, "I shall never have patience to get through these volumes, there are so many ahs! and ohs! so much fainting, tears, and distress, I am sick to death of the subject." My dear, cheerful, innocent ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... extricate the nation from its unhappy place on the European guillotine. The narrow streets stuttered with argument.... Von Stinnes and a girl named Mathilde Dohmann accompanied him to the town. The Baron, bored for the moment with his labors, had immersed his volatile self in a diligent pursuit of Mathilde. He had discovered her among communist councils in Berlin and naively attached her as a part of Dorn's ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... stood at bay, seeing his plans crumble. That evening, after the day spent in Valentina's company—and she so sweet and kind to him—he began to take heart of grace once more, and his volatile mind whispered to his soul the hope that, after all, things might well be as he had first intended, if he but played his cards adroitly, and did not mar his chances by the precipitancy that had once gone near to losing him. His purpose gathered strength from ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... may go along into the field. Only the man versed in statecraft should be allowed to participate in the talk about the results of war. Not he who has out yonder proved an unworthy diplomat, nor the dilettante loafer sprayed with the perfume of volatile emotions. Manhood liability to military service requires manhood suffrage? That question may rest for the time being; likewise the desire for equality of that right shall not be argued today. But common sense should warn against the assumption of an office without the slightest ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... a literal translation of this astonishing chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... now in their decadence, have played an immense and still play a not wholly insignificant part in the complex drama of Asiatic politics. It is the picture of a people, light-hearted, nimble-witted, and volatile, but subtle, hypocritical, and insincere; metaphysicians and casuists, courtiers and rogues, gentlemen and liars, hommes d'esprit and yet incurable cowards. To explain the history and to elucidate the character of this composite people great tomes have been written. I am conscious ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... busy Paris—is as brilliant as ever; every one seemingly bent on pleasure, light and volatile as the air they breathe. In this city life hovers April-like between a tear and a smile! Visiting the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, we witnessed an impressive funeral service. The coffin in the centre of the nave, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... instant relief to her volatile mind. She began to chatter gaily about how she and Carmena would entertain him during the wait for Slade. In this the older girl joined with cordial heartiness. Elsie displayed a high stack of women's magazines, for which Carmena was a regular subscriber. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... under tremendous strain, only required the addition of that caused by the lunar and solar attractions to produce rupture in both cases, giving rise to increased activity, and the extrusion of lava and volatile matter. It may, in general, be safely affirmed that low barometric pressure on the one hand, and the occurrence of the syzygies (when the attractions of the sun and moon are in the same line) on the other, have had great influence in determining ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... dangerous. The court surgeon was as consoling as he was complimentary, and by the time that messengers from the palace had arrived with inquiries from the Emperor and invitations to the Emperor's ball, the mother of the heroine could dispense with her sal volatile. ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... answer, and the maid bade him step inside while she ran up-stairs. Mrs. Sumter answered her knock at the door of Miss Kate's room, into which the damsels were now doubled. To the disappointment of that somewhat volatile domestic, Mrs. Sumter closed the portal before proceeding to open the missive, but her announcement, "From Mr. Lanier," caused Miriam Arnold to ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... of him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... round,' he said; 'we'll just give him some sal volatile, and then to bed and a long rest. In a day or two he should ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... Ignition is meant the exposure of a substance to such a degree of heat, that it glows or emits light, or becomes red-hot. Its greatest value is in the separation of a volatile substance from one less volatile, or one which is entirely fixed at the temperature of the flame. In this case we only take cognizance of the latter or fixed substance, although in many instances we make use of ignition for the purpose of changing the conditions ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous

... remains the primary sticking point to signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities; Russia and Georgia agree on delimiting all but small, strategic segments of the land boundary and the maritime boundary; OSCE observers monitor volatile areas such as the Pankisi Gorge in the Akhmeti region and the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia; Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed equidistance boundaries in the Caspian seabed but the littoral states have no consensus on dividing the water column; Russia and Norway dispute their maritime ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... mind is temperate in feeling, deliberate in choosing, and robust in its willing, character becomes set and enduring. If, on the contrary, feeling is volatile, choice fickle, and the will flabby, one quality after another awakens momentary admiration and impulse; ideals succeed each other as the vanishing visions of a dream; life is passed in a state of perpetual inward contradiction; and failure, both for yourselves and for ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... other Lani might be, Copper was different. Quick, volatile, intelligent, she was a constant delight, a flashing kaleidoscope of unexpected facets. Perhaps the others were the same if he knew them better. But he didn't know them—and avoided learning. In that ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... "A highly volatile chemical. It's not a painkiller in the usual sense, like aspirin. You spray it on the area that hurts, and it evaporates in seconds. You know what ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... hospitality to a great extent. Having overseers on most of their plantations, the labor being performed by slaves, they have much leisure, and are averse to much personal attention to business. They dislike care, profound thinking and deep impressions. The young men are volatile, gay, dashing and reckless spirits, fond of excitement and high life. There is a fatal propensity amongst the southern planters to decide quarrels, and even trivial disputes by duels. But there ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... Organic Compounds: Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Concerning the Control of Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... agreements: party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... see and hear and feel in the sun-steeped ways of the wonderful Japanese city. Still, even could I revive all the lost sensations of those first experiences, I doubt if I could express and fix them in words. The first charm of Japan is intangible and volatile as a perfume. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... calm,' exclaimed Lady Armine. 'This is most unfortunate. Dear, dear Katherine, but she has such a heart! All the women have in our family, and none of the men, 'tis so odd. Mr. Glastonbury, water if you please, that glass of water; sal volatile; where is the sal volatile? My own, own Katherine, pray, pray restrain yourself! Ferdinand is here; remember, Ferdinand is here, and he will soon be well; soon quite well. Believe me, he is already quite another thing. There, drink that, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... the time of Pliny in connexion with the manufacture of soap, and it was also known that the ashes of shore-plants yielded a hard soap and those of land-plants a soft one. But the two substances were generally confounded as "fixed alkali'' (carbonate of ammonia being "volatile alkali''), till Duhamel du Monceau in 1736 established the fact that common salt and the ashes of sea-plants contain the same base as is found in natural deposits of soda salts ("mineral alkali''), and that this body is different from the "vegetable alkali'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Philosophal Stone, is to have discovered the Absolute, as all the Masters say. But the Absolute is that which admits of no errors, is the Fixed from the Volatile, is the Law of the Imagination, is the very necessity of Being, is the immutable Law of Reason and Truth. The Absolute ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... we control, to the Highland Park plant and the River Rouge plant. Part of it goes for steam purposes. Another part goes to the by-product coke ovens which we have established at the River Rouge plant. Coke moves on from the ovens by mechanical transmission to the blast furnaces. The low volatile gases from the blast furnaces are piped to the power plant boilers where they are joined by the sawdust and the shavings from the body plant—the making of all our bodies has been shifted to this plant—and in addition the coke "breeze" (the dust in the making ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... humiliating position also for the bride. It might even affect the happiness of the newly-married pair; but John did not wish to hint at these graver views of the subject; he was afraid to give them too much importance, and he confidently reckoned on Valentine's volatile disposition to stand his friend, and soon enable him to get over his attachment. All that seemed wanting was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... seen the advent of a work which almost in a day set the world on fire and raised an unknown musician from penury and obscurity to affluence and fame. In the face of such an experience it was scarcely to be wondered at that judgment was flung to the winds and that the most volatile of musical nations and the staidest alike hailed the young composer as the successor of Verdi, the regenerator of operatic Italy, and the pioneer of a new school which should revitalize opera and make unnecessary the hopeless task ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... juice decocted with honey and wine, Dr. Needham affirms he has often cur'd the scorbut with. This wine, exquisitely made, is so strong, that the common sort of stone-bottles cannot preserve the spirits, so subtile they are and volatile; and yet it is gentle, and very harmless in operation within the body, and exceedingly sharpens the appetite, being drunk ante pastum: I will present you a receipt, as it was sent me by a fair lady, and have ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... cod-liver-oil emulsion and a good face-powder. A little boracic ointment rubbed well into the roots before breakfast is also to be commended. With regard to the Squirrel-tailed Borzois, during the period of weaning try bicarbonate of soda, one scruple; sal volatile, one drachm; to be taken every calendar month from date ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various

... that the complexity of circumstance arises. Secondly, interest works by exciting the will; whereas beauty exists only for the pure perceptive intelligence, which has no will. However, with dramatic and descriptive literature an admixture of interest is necessary, just as a volatile and gaseous substance requires a material basis if it is to be preserved and transferred. The admixture is necessary, partly, indeed, because interest is itself created by the events which have to be devised in order to set the characters in motion; ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... was oral, the volatile Mitchell made use of his voice in a manner of heathenish boisterousness, and presently reclined upon a lounge to laugh the better. His stricken comrade, meanwhile, recovered so far as to pace the floor. "I'm goin' to pack up and light out for home!" he declared, over and over. ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... bitterness, was like a repentance for the secret impression which the favourable exterior of this young man had at first inspired. She accuses herself with finding him so handsome, and seems to fortify her heart against the fascination of his looks. "Barbaroux is volatile," she said; "the adoration he receives from worthless women destroys the seriousness of his feelings. When I see such fine young men too conceited at the impression they make, like Barbaroux and Herault de Sechelles, I cannot help thinking ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Daddy Liszt began it all. He had read everything before he was twenty, and had embraced and renegaded from twenty religions. This volatile, versatile, vibratile, vivacious, vicious temperament of his has been copied by most modern pianists who haven't brains enough to parse a sentence or play a Bach Invention. The Weimar crew all imitated Liszt's style in octaves and hair dressing. I was there once, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... entered upon the responsible duties of wife and mother, and is acting well her part in the drama of life. Her usually volatile spirit is chastened and subdued by the sorrows that have passed over it, and it is her earnest endeavor so to live, as to meet the approbation of God, and her own conscience and train her dear children for that better life that is promised ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... schools in the town, whither she walked daily from a village near. If he had not been poor and the little teacher humble, Christopher might possibly have been tempted to inquire more briskly about her, and who knows how such a pursuit might have ended? But hard externals rule volatile sentiment, and under these untoward influences the girl and the book and the truth about its author were matters upon which he could not afford to expend much time. All Christopher did was to think now and then of the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... 'Scrape' is the turpentine gathered from the face of the pine. On old trees, the yearly incision is made high above the boxes, and the sap, in flowing down, passes over and adheres to the previously scarified surface. It is thus exposed to the sun, which evaporates the more volatile and valuable portion, and leaves only the hard, which, when manufactured, is mostly rosin. 'Scrape' turpentine is only about ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... beetles (Carabidae) almost all possess a disagreeable and some a very pungent smell, and a few, called bombardier beetles, have the peculiar faculty of emitting a jet of very volatile liquid, which appears like a puff of smoke, and is accompanied by a distinct crepitating explosion. It is probably because these insects are mostly nocturnal and predacious that they do not present more vivid hues. They ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... found in Cebu, [155] and satisfactory trials have been made with it, mixed with British bituminous coal. Perhaps volcanic action may account for the volatile bituminous oils and gases having been driven off the original deposits. The first coal-pits were sunk in Cebu in the Valle de Masanga, but the poor commercial results led to their abandonment about ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... the loading ramp, savoring the dry, dusty air that smelled unmistakable of spaceship. He half-consciously separated the odors; the sweet, volatile scent of fuel, the sharp aroma of lingering exhaust gases from early morning test-firing, the delicate odor of silicon plastic which was being stowed as payload. He shielded his eyes against the sun, watching as men struggled with the last plastic girders to be strapped ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing

... more of this," said Dr. May, seeing that the discussion was injuring Margaret more and more. "Go away to my study, sir, and wait till I come to you. All of you out of the room. Flora, fetch the sal volatile." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition whom their friends ought not to ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... crew of these soaring philosophers, in the course of an aerial voyage of discovery among the stars, should chance to alight upon this outlandish planet. And here I beg my readers will not have the uncharitableness to smile, as is too frequently the fault of volatile readers, when perusing the grave speculations of philosophers. I am far from indulging in any sportive vein at present; nor is the supposition I have been making so wild as many may deem it. It has long been a very serious ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... not wanting many who regretted this precipitate return to the old order of things—to conscription, war, and bloodshed, while in the superior classes of society there was a pretty general consternation. The vain, volatile soldiery, however, thought of nothing but their Emperor, saw nothing before them but the restoration of all their laurels, the humiliation of England, and the utter defeat of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... volatile guest, "you see you are not of a grasping nature. Come, Harry, try your luck at ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... in opium it can only act as a foreign substance and a mechanical irritant to the human bowels. Next come two inert, indigestible, and very similar gummy bodies, mucilagin and bassorine. Sugar, a powerfully active volatile principle, and a fixed oil (probably allied to turpentine) are the only other invariable constituents of opium belonging to the great organic group of ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... For, sooner than expected, the volatile fluid— or whatever it may be—passes out of their veins, and their nervous strength returns; even Ludwig saying he is himself again, though he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... glass—hair that looked as if no comb or brush could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit, with such grace and fleetness, one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a squirrel or a spider-monkey of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes; the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy, and most vocal of small beauties." Or this, as the quintessence of a sly ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... close-fitting black hat, sat by her elder daughter's side, trying vainly to calm the tumult. In the background the maid, her face streaming with sympathetic tears, was hovering distractedly with a jar of volatile salts. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the dead lady's room any more. Being a volatile man it is probable that more cheerful plans and occupations began to entertain ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... moderately, the first and last product of its distillation is simple water; while, when the altered fluid is subjected to the same process, the matter which is first condensed in the receiver is found to be a clear, volatile substance, which is lighter than water, has a pungent taste and smell, possesses the intoxicating powers of the fluid in an eminent degree, and takes fire the moment it is brought in contact with a flame. The Alchemists called this volatile liquid, which they obtained from wine, ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... trying to solve these problems. "A small French force of 5,000 men," he told the Governor, "could most assuredly conquer the Province of Quebec. In the event of French invasion, would the volatile Lower Canadian people, in spite of all their privileges, remain loyal?" A certain class of habitant argued that Napoleon, who was sure to conquer Europe, would of course seize the Canadas, encouraged by the United ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... the volatile child, as the door closed after him. "He spoke as solemn as a minister; but I suppose that's the way with Yankees. I think cher papa likes ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child



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