Library / English Dictionary

INCONSTANCY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being changeable and variable

Synonyms:

changefulness; inconstancy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("inconstancy" is a kind of...):

changeability; changeableness (the quality of being changeable; having a marked tendency to change)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inconstancy"):

capriciousness; unpredictability (the quality of being guided by sudden unpredictable impulses)

Antonym:

constancy (the quality of being enduring and free from change or variation)

Derivation:

inconstant (likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unfaithfulness by virtue of being unreliable or treacherous

Synonyms:

faithlessness; falseness; fickleness; inconstancy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("inconstancy" is a kind of...):

infidelity; unfaithfulness (the quality of being unfaithful)

Derivation:

inconstant (likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Though aware, before she began it, that it must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and delicate feeling—so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever—a letter of which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be deep in hardened villainy.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should fall?

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)