mobile

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mōbilis (“easy to be moved, moveable”), from moveō (“move”).

adj

1. Capable of being moved, especially on wheels.
   a mobile home
2. Pertaining to or by agency of mobile phones.
   mobile number
   mobile internet
   A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone. 2012-12-01, “An internet of airborne things”, in The Economist, volume 405, number 8813, page 3 (Technology Quarterly)
3. Characterized by an extreme degree of fluidity; moving or flowing with great freedom.
   Mercury is a mobile liquid.
4. Easily moved in feeling, purpose, or direction; excitable; changeable; fickle.
5. Changing in appearance and expression under the influence of the mind.
   mobile features
6. (biology) Capable of being moved, aroused, or excited; capable of spontaneous movement.

noun

1. (art) A kinetic sculpture or decorative arrangement made of items hanging so that they can move independently from each other.
2. (telephony, UK) Ellipsis of mobile phone.
   Mobiles squerking, mobiles chirping / Take the money and run 2000, “Idioteque”, in Kid A, performed by Radiohead
3. (uncountable, Internet) The internet accessed via mobile devices.
   there are many business opportunities in mobile
4. One who or moves, or who can move (e.g. to travel to a different place).
   […] if the constrained "immobiles" are given the same transportation access as the unconstrained "mobiles". […] We concentrated on a mobile teenager population that had good public transportation or automobile access and a[…] 1963, Highway Research Record
   Table 6.5 does indeed show that non-changers were more contented […] For Table 6.7 shows that even when we take account of the initial differences between the mobiles and immobiles, the mobiles' ratings of job characteristics move strongly in a positive direction while all the immobiles' record negative shifts. So the pattern is clear and consistent: jobs get better for movers and worse for non-movers. 1988-02-25, Nigel Nicholson, Michael West, Managerial Job Change: Men and Women in Transition, Cambridge University Press, page 132
   One ex-airwoman recalls meal times for both 'mobiles' and 'immobiles', when they sat on backless benches at long bare tables. The 'immobiles' brought in their own food, crockery and cutlery. A free-standing iron range was used[…] 2005-07-19, Ian M. Philpott, The Royal Air Force: The Trenchard Years, 1918–1929, Casemate Publishers