TITLE: When was the word "stable" first used to describe stable homotopy theory?
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: The word "stable" has many uses in mathematics, but in the context of stable homotopy theory, one might take it to mean one of two things:

Homotopy groups stabilize after taking suspensions (Freudenthal
suspension theorem), or
Cofiber sequences are fiber sequences (e.g., you've
inverted the loops-suspension functors).


Does anybody know the first instances in which the words "stable" or "stability"
  were used to describe each of these phenomena?

As far as I can tell:
In the 90's and onward, Hovey, Schwede-Shipley, and Lurie, used the second meaning to define stable (model, oo-) categories. I don't know of any earlier references in which this second meaning was pinched out as the meaning of stability, though there may have been many.
In the 60's, Adams and Boardman (and many others) use the word stability without hesitation. I feel like, by this time, it was common to use the word "stability", but I am not sure which of the above two phenomenon the word "stability" was intended to capture. Perhaps both.
In 1938, Freudenthal observed the first phenomenon. I would venture to say this might have been the beginning of "stable" phenomena in homotopy theory, but I don't know enough German to see if he even used the word "stable" in his paper.

REPLY [3 votes]: I like Lennart's comment so, Drew, I won't try to say much more. Stability in the first sense was certainly well understood by the very early 1950's, and it would be hard to be certain of a ``first'' reference. The second sense had to come later since cofiber sequences and fiber sequences were only formalized in 1958 (Puppe) and 1960 (Nomura); the comparison map $\Sigma Ff \longrightarrow Cf$ relating them came a bit later, I believe. Both senses were thoroughly understood before 1964 (when Boardman and I got our theses).