I'm referring to the risk and volatility of a single mutual fund.

You'll have to look at the prospectus and examine their investing style.

If you have access to Morningstar reports, you can check out the Morningstyle box (also most funds prospectus has this on there). Things the box is a 3x3 box, left column being growth, right column being value. Top row is large cap stocks, while bottom column is small cap stocks. Funds in the bottom left are very volitile, while funds in the top right are very stable. At a quick glance, this is the best indicator I can think of.

you got that right

Standard deviation is the usual measure of risk. Higher is riskier, lower is less risky. Every mutual fund website will list the standard deviation for each fund. But make certain they're measuring it the same way so you're comparing apples to apples. For example, are they figuring the annual standard deviation of daily returns? Over what period?