mobile Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a river in southwestern Alabama; flows into Mobile Bay
    Mobile River.
  2. noun a port in southwestern Alabama on Mobile Bay
  3. noun sculpture suspended in midair whose delicately balanced parts can be set in motion by air currents
  4. adjective satellite migratory
    wandering; nomadic; peregrine; roving.
    • a restless mobile society
    • the nomadic habits of the Bedouins
    • believed the profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy future
    • wandering tribes
  5. adjective moving or capable of moving readily (especially from place to place)
    • a mobile missile system
    • the tongue is...the most mobile articulator
  6. adjective satellite having transportation available
  7. adjective satellite capable of changing quickly from one state or condition to another
    • a highly mobile face
  8. adjective satellite affording change (especially in social status)
    fluid.
    • Britain is not a truly fluid society
    • upwardly mobile

WordNet

Mo"bile adjective
Etymology
L. mobilis, for movibilis, fr. movere to move: cf. F. mobile. See Move.
Definitions
  1. Capable of being moved; not fixed in place or condition; movable. "Fixed or else mobile." Skelton.
  2. Characterized by an extreme degree of fluidity; moving or flowing with great freedom; as, benzine and mercury are mobile liquids; -- opposed to viscous, viscoidal, or oily.
  3. Easily moved in feeling, purpose, or direction; excitable; changeable; fickle. Testament of Love.
    The quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition. Hawthorne.
  4. Changing in appearance and expression under the influence of the mind; as, mobile features.
  5. (Physiol.) Capable of being moved, aroused, or excited; capable of spontaneous movement.
Mo"bile noun
Etymology
L. mobile vulgus. See Mobile, a., and cf. 3d Mob.
Definitions
  1. The mob; the populace. Obs. "The unthinking mobile." South.

Webster 1913