mobile

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a river in southwestern Alabama; flows into Mobile Bay
  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

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mōbilis (“easy to be moved, moveable”), from moveō (“move”). The video-gaming sense was coined by Richard Bartle to describe NPCs or creatures capable of moving "under their own power" in the 1978 video game Multi-User Dungeon. Bartle retracted an earlier claim of his that it was from the kinetic sculpture sense of mobile (for the "unpredictable but limited" motion of the hanging ornaments).

In classic literature

Synonyms

Mobile River

A single word — an entire dictionary opens.

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning

Continue reading