Dictionary

metastability en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *me Proto-Indo-European *meth₂? Ancient Greek μετᾰ́ (metắ) Ancient Greek μετᾰ- (metă-)lbor. English meta- English stability English metastability From meta- + stability.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) An unstable but potentially long-lived state of a system; for example, a supersaturated solution or an excited atom.
   • Soloman's belief that love is necessarily paradoxical issues from his attempt to define it as what Sartre would call a dialectical metastability. Love must therefore be not a "state of the union but a never ending conflict of pushing away and pulling together." 1989, Irving Singer, The Nature of Love:

Forms

Deriveds

metastable

Translations (5)

de Metastabilität (unstable but potentially long-lived state) · es metaestabilidad (unstable but potentially long-lived state) · fr métastabilité (unstable but potentially long-lived state) · tr yarı kararlılık (unstable but potentially long-lived state) · it metastabilità (unstable but potentially long-lived state)