mobile

comparative more mobile · superlative most mobile

1. Capable of being moved, especially on wheels.

   mobile home; mobile library

   Synonyms: movable, afoot, animate, astir, cursory, dynamic, in motion, moving · Antonyms: fixed, immobile, immovable, sessile, stationary

2. Able to move freely or easily.

   She's mobile again after her skiing accident.

3. Pertaining to or by agency of mobile phones.

   mobile number

   2 more examples

   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 December 1, “An internet of airborne things”, in The Economist, volume 405, number 8813, page 3 (Technology Quarterly)

4. Characterized by an extreme degree of fluidity; moving or flowing with great freedom.

   Mercury is a mobile liquid.

   Synonyms: fluxive, flowy, fluent, fluid, fluxive, free-flowing, liquid, runny

5. Easily moved in feeling, purpose, or direction; excitable; changeable; fickle.

   the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 7, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

   Synonyms: excitable, fickle, changeable, changeful, changeling, dynamic, everchanging, fickle

6. Changing in appearance and expression under the influence of the mind.

   a mobile face

   2 more examples

   mobile features

   His finely cut features were capable of every variety of expression; they were, to use a French epithet, expressive as their epithets for all social qualities usually are, mobile in the extreme.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Another London Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 176

7. biologyCapable of being moved, aroused, or excited; capable of spontaneous movement.

   Synonyms: motile · Antonyms: sessile

plural mobiles

1. sculptureA kinetic sculpture or decorative arrangement made of items hanging so that they can move independently from each other.

   Antonyms: stabile

2. IndiaIrelandUKabbreviationellipsiscommunicationsEllipsis of mobile phone.

   Mobiles squerking, mobiles chirping / Take the money and run

   2000, “Idioteque”, in Kid A, performed by Radiohead

   1 more example

   Pinned against my neighbours, I could feel small hands, fleeting as lizards, fluttering lightly through my pockets in search of money, mobile, wallet.

   2009, Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower

   Synonyms: cell phone

3. InternetuncountableThe internet accessed via mobile devices; the version of a product seen on mobile devices.

   The bug affects mobile, but not desktop.

   1 more example

   There are many business opportunities in mobile.

4. One who moves or can move (e.g. to travel).

   […] 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

   2 more examples

   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 February 25, Nigel Nicholson, Michael West, Managerial Job Change: Men and Women in Transition, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, 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 July 19, Ian M. Philpott, The Royal Air Force: The Trenchard Years, 1918–1929, Casemate Publishers, →ISBN

   Antonyms: immobile

5. An object capable of moving under its own power.

   Antonyms: inanimate

6. broadlydatedvideo gamesA creature or NPC that can navigate and interact with the game world (now often shortened to mob).

   Even mundane mobiles are very advanced. They incorporate other expert systems that enable them to fight (often better than the players); […]

   1991, “Modems and Mazes: Life and Death Over the Phone”, in The Gamesman, volume December 1991, page 16

   1 more example

   MUD has a type of character called a mobile. These are monsters controlled by the program such as the Dragon and the Vampire. To kill these a band of adventurers need to hunt down the creature hurling a combined strength to vanquish it.

   1984, Simon Rockman, “Rockman Files: MUD, MUD, Glorious MUD”, in Games Computing, volume April 1984, page 89

   Synonyms: mob, mobile object, agent, non-player character

1. A city, the county seat of Mobile County, in southwestern Alabama.

   Oh, Mama / Is this really the end? / To be stuck here inside of Mobile / With the Memphis blues again

   1966, Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, in Blonde on Blonde