INCONSTANT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inconstant mean? 

• INCONSTANT (adjective)
  The adjective INCONSTANT has 1 sense:

1. likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable

  Familiarity information: INCONSTANT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCONSTANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable

Context example:

swear not by...the inconstant moon

Similar:

false; untrue ((used especially of persons) not dependable in devotion or affection; unfaithful)

fickle; volatile (marked by erratic changeableness in affections or attachments)

mutable (prone to frequent change; inconstant)

Also:

changeable; changeful (such that alteration is possible; having a marked tendency to change)

unfaithful (not true to duty or obligation or promises)

unstable (lacking stability or fixity or firmness)

variable (liable to or capable of change)

volatile (evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures)

Attribute:

constancy; stability (the quality of being enduring and free from change or variation)

Antonym:

constant (steadfast in purpose or devotion or affection)

Derivation:

inconstancy (the quality of being changeable and variable)

inconstancy (unfaithfulness by virtue of being unreliable or treacherous)

 Context examples 

Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Tell her of my misery and my penitence—tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I am sure Julia does not, or she would not have flirted as she did last night with Mr. Yates; and though he and Maria are very good friends, I think she likes Sotherton too well to be inconstant.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I descended—as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated me with his boyish courtship—into a doll, a trifle for the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the inconstant humour took him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I do not think anything would justify me in wishing you to sacrifice all your happiness merely to oblige my brother, because he is my brother, and who perhaps after all, you know, might be just as happy without you, for people seldom know what they would be at, young men especially, they are so amazingly changeable and inconstant.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

How inconstant are your feelings!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)