[1] Colloquially, it may instead refer to kinetic persistence, the shelf-life of a metastable substance or system; that is, the timescale over which it begins to degrade.
Thermodynamic stability occurs when a system is in its lowest energy state, or in chemical equilibrium with its environment.
A substance (or state) might also be termed "kinetically persistent" if it is changing relatively slowly (and thus is not at thermodynamic equilibrium, but is observed anyway).
Therefore, the term chemically stable should not be used by chemists as a synonym of unreactive because it confuses thermodynamic and kinetic concepts.
In particular, the usefulness is retained in the presence of air, moisture or heat, and under the expected conditions of application.