instability.

A tendency to change unpredictably or move away from a steady condition when disturbed.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• political instability
• instability of a system

On the page

Political instability disrupted agreements that had previously survived routine elections.

The simulation revealed instability when small disturbances grew rather than subsided.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: definition, comparison, qualification, causal analysis. Disciplines: academic writing, institutional analysis, general research. Commonness: moderately common.