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The Roman god Mercury was the messenger and herald of the gods and also the god of merchants and thieves (his counterpart in Greek mythology is Hermes). He was noted for his eloquence, swiftness, and cunning, and the Romans named what appeared to them to be the fastest-moving planet in his honor. Mercurial comes from the Latin adjective mercurialis, meaning "of or relating to Mercury."
Synonyms
Examples of mercurial in a Sentence
Adam Nicolson, God's Secretaries, 2003
Though you could see all three places in one day, each of them makes you want to stay or to keep returning to watch the effects of the changing weather and the mercurial Sicilian light.
—Francine Prose, Atlantic, December 2002
Some scientists suggest that because manic-depressive patients are ever riding the bio-chemical express between emotional extremes, their brains end up more complexly wired and remain more persistently plastic than do the brains of less mercurial sorts.
—Natalie Angier, New York Times, 12 Oct. 1993
Still grinning, still miming, he samba-ed across the floor … and started in on the dishes with a vigor that would have prostrated his mercurial cousin.
—T. Coraghessan Boyle, Harper's, October 1987
the boss's mood is so mercurial that we never know how he's going to react to anything
Brennan Kilbane, Allure, 5 Apr. 2024
Curran captivates as the mercurial sovereign, who veers between moments of lucidity and long stretches of what seems like madness, though it’s never identified as such.
—Alison Herman, Variety, 5 Apr. 2024
But where are his descendants: the brooding, mercurial, ultra-male actors who pull performances out of their guts and refuse to talk about it afterward?
—Ty Burr, Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2024
Yet like her film’s moody and mercurial tour guide, Rohrwacher is focused on a less terrestrial, more celestial world that lies just beyond our sight line.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 30 Mar. 2024
Should he be elected to a second term, Trump’s attitudes toward Ukraine, Russia, and NATO—and his mercurial and self-interested mindset—will be pivotal for the war in Ukraine.
—Liana Fix, Foreign Affairs, 22 Mar. 2024
Helping SpaceX or Blue Origin build towering rockets, orbiting labs or moon landers can also mean serving at the whims of mercurial executives.
—Aashna Shah, Fortune, 20 Mar. 2024
Isabella Gomez’s Yoli is a mercurial delight, though Calderón Kellett overplays the joke of her character’s political correctness.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2024
In this alternate universe, which for Jin appears as a version of imperial China, the mercurial gravitational forces of a trio of suns render survival impossible.
—Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mercurial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near mercurial
Cite this Entry
“Mercurial.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mercurial. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
mercurial
1 of 2 adjective
mercurial
2 of 2 noun
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