labile

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin lābilis (“apt to slip, transient”), from lābor, lābī (“slip; glide, flow”).

adj

1. Liable to slip, err, fall, or apostatize.
2. Apt or likely to change.
3. (chemistry, of a compound or bond) Kinetically unstable; rapidly cleaved (and possibly reformed).
   Certain drugs can be conjugated to polymer molecules with a linkage that is labile at low pH to effect controlled release in a cellular endosome.
   Water ligands typically bind metals in a labile fashion and are rapidly interchanged in aqueous solution.
4. (linguistics, of a verb) Able to change valency without changing its form; especially, able to be used both transitively and intransitively without changing its form.