a. Also 5 labyl, 7 labil. [ad. L. lābil-is, f. lābi to slip, fall, LAPSE: See -ILE. Cf. F. labile.]
1. Liable or prone to lapse. † a. Prone to fall into error or sin; Theol. liable to fall from innocence (obs.). b. Of a fund, etc.: Lapsable.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 147. My labyl mynde and the dulnesse Of my wyt.
1678. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, III. 199. The supralapsarian Divines, who make man as labile the object of reprobation.
1740. Cheyne, Regimen, iv. 140. All Creatures being finite and free, must necessarily, by their Nature, be labile, fallible and peccable.
1894. G. S. Hall, in Forum, June, 449. These funds are no more labile than any other form of trust or mortmain.
† 2. Apt to slip away, slippery. lit. and fig. Obs.
1623. Cockeram, Labile, slipperie, unstable.
1654. Jer. Taylor, Real Pres., 14. Now a man would think we had him sure; but his nature is labile and slippery.
3. Prone to undergo displacement in position or change in nature, form, chemical composition, etc.; unstable. Now only in Physics and Chemistry.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, II. xii. (1632), 340. Pithagoras [said] that each thing or matter was ever gliding and labile.
1654. Jer. Taylor, Real Pres., § 1. Wood … can … be made thin, labile and inconsistent.
1878. Foster, Physiol., II. v. 363. More labile than tissue proteid and yet more stable than the circulating proteid.
1889. Burdon-Sanderson, in Nature, Sept., 26. Protoplasm … comes to consist of two things … of acting part which lives and is stable, and of acted-on part which has never lived and is labile, that is, in a state of metabolism.
1894. Ld. Salisbury in Pop. Sci. Monthly, Nov., 40. The genius of Lord Kelvin has recently discovered what he terms a labile state of equilibrium.
4. Electr. Said of the application of a current by moving an electrode over an affected region instead of holding it firmly at one part.
1888. in Syd. Soc. Lex.
1893. A. S. Eccles, Sciatica, vi. 65. With the anode labile over the foot, leg, and thigh.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 369. The battery current labile over the affected muscles.
Hence Lability, proneness to lapse, instability of form or nature.
1554. in Maitl. Club Misc., III. (1855), 65. The labilite and breuitie of tymes maneris and of men in this wale of teiris beand considerit.
1646. Gaule, Cases Consc., 34. Vanity of Science, error of Conscience, lability of innocence.
1654. Jer. Taylor, Real Pres., xi. § 32. 247. Consistence or lability, are not essential to wood and water.
1740. Cheyne, Regimen, v. (1790), 218. But Sensibility and Intelligence, being by their Nature and Essence free must be labile, and by their Lability may actually lapse, degenerat [etc.].
