| / English Dictionary |
DORMANT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Inactive but capable of becoming active
Example:
her feelings of affection are dormant but easily awakened
Synonyms:
abeyant; dormant
Classified under:
Similar:
inactive (not active physically or mentally)
Derivation:
dormancy (a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of e.g. volcanos) not erupting and not extinct
Example:
a dormant volcano
Synonyms:
dormant; inactive
Classified under:
Similar:
quiescent (being quiet or still or inactive)
Attribute:
dormancy; quiescence; quiescency (a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction)
Antonym:
active ((of e.g. volcanos) erupting or liable to erupt)
Derivation:
dormancy (a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction)
Sense 3
Meaning:
In a condition of biological rest or suspended animation
Example:
torpid frogs
Synonyms:
dormant; hibernating; torpid
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
asleep (in a state of sleep)
Domain category:
biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)
Derivation:
dormancy (quiet and inactive restfulness)
dormancy (a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Lying with head on paws as if sleeping
Synonyms:
dormant; sleeping
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unerect (not upright in position or posture)
Domain category:
heraldry (the study and classification of armorial bearings and the tracing of genealogies)
Context examples:
Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.
(Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years, NASA)
In a recently published study, researchers from Washington State University say bacteria, found in the hyper-arid soil of Chile's Atacama Desert, can live dormant for decades, patiently waiting for very rare rainfalls.
(Scientists: Life Can Thrive in Most Extreme Environments, George Putic/VOA)
A common dermal and neurologic disorder caused by reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus that has remained dormant within dorsal root ganglia, often for decades, after the patient's initial exposure to the virus in the form of varicella (chickenpox).
(Herpes Zoster, NCI Thesaurus)
In fact, though this strength pervaded every action of his, it seemed but the advertisement of a greater strength that lurked within, that lay dormant and no more than stirred from time to time, but which might arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage of a lion or the wrath of a storm.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
She had then taken the impassive figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
We can now start to look at these genes in other insects, to see how variation might be linked to changes in timing for when they go dormant before winter, and when they 'wake up' in the spring, said Genevieve Kozak, one of the study's authors.
(Secrets to climate change adaptation uncovered in the European corn borer moth, National Science Foundation)
They found the samples from women who had been treated with a specific chemotherapeutic regimen known as ABVD not only contained greater numbers of dormant ova — egg cells — than those from women treated with harsher regimens but also more than samples from healthy women.
(Chemotherapy cocktail may cause adult women to grow new egg cells, Wikinews)
While she was gone Mr. Rushworth arrived, escorting his mother, who came to be civil and to shew her civility especially, in urging the execution of the plan for visiting Sotherton, which had been started a fortnight before, and which, in consequence of her subsequent absence from home, had since lain dormant.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Seemingly dormant fractures lying above the moon's warm, underground sea point to the dynamic character of Enceladus' geology, suggesting the moon might have experienced several episodes of activity, in different places on its surface.
(Cassini Sees Heat Below the Icy Surface of Enceladus, NASA)
But over time, a large number of the microbes became dormant.
(Changing salt marsh conditions send resident microbes into dormancy, NSF)
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