dormant

English

A heraldic lion dormant.

Alternative forms

• dormaunt (obsolete)
• dormient (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin dormiēns, present participle of dormiō (“I sleep”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdɔɹmənt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdɔːmənt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

dormant (not comparable)

1. Inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.

   Grass goes dormant during the winter, waiting for spring before it grows again.

   The bank account was dormant; there had been no transactions in months.

   This volcano is dormant but not extinct.

   • 1777, Edmund Burke, A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America; republished in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, volume 2, 1864, page 10:

     It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people.

   • 1992, Richard Nixon, “The Pacific Triangle”, in Seize the Moment‎^[1], Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 179:

     The repression at Tiananmen Square dealt a serious but not fatal blow to the pro-democracy movement. It has been forced to lie dormant until a future moment of opportunity. As the revolutions in Eastern Europe proved, however, that moment will eventually come.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Thresher Maws Codex entry:

     Thresher maws are subterranean carnivores that spend their entire lives eating or searching for something to eat. Threshers reproduce via spores that lie dormant for millennia, yet are robust enough to survive prolonged periods in deep space and atmospheric re-entry. As a result, thresher spores appear on many worlds, spread by previous generations of space travelers.

2. (heraldry) In a sleeping posture; distinguished from couchant.

   a lion dormant

3. (architecture) Leaning.

Synonyms

• (inactive, suspended): quiescent; see also Thesaurus:inactive

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “inactive, suspended”): active
• (antonym(s) of “volcano: inactive”): active, extinct

Derived terms

• antidormant
• dormantly
• dormantory
• dormant volcano
• dormant window
• ecodormant
• ecodormant
• endodormant
• hyperdormant
• nondormant
• paradormant
• quasidormant
• semidormant
• superdormant
• undormant

 

Related terms

• dorm
• dormancy
• dormition
• dormitive
• dormitory

Translations

inactive, asleep, suspended

• Bulgarian: спящ (bg) (spjašt), латентен (bg) (latenten), неактивен (neaktiven)
• Catalan: latent
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 睡眠狀態的／睡眠状态的 (shuìmián zhuàngtài de), 休眠 (zh) (xiūmián)

• Danish: sovende, slumrende, hvilende
• Dutch: niet actief, slapend (nl), latent (nl)
• Finnish: horroksessa oleva
• French: dormant (fr), endormi (fr), inactif (fr)
• Galician: dormente
• German: schlafend (de), inaktiv (de)
• Greek: κοιμώμενος m (koimómenos), κοιμισμένος (el) m (koimisménos), αδρανής (el) m or f (adranís)
• Hungarian: szunnyadó (hu), alvó (hu)
• Indonesian: terbengkalai (id)
• Japanese: 休止中の (kyūshichū no), 休眠中の (kyūminchū no)
• Maori: maurinoho
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sovende

• Persian: خفته (fa) (xofte)
• Polish: uśpiony
• Portuguese: dormente (pt), inativo (pt)
• Romanian: inactiv (ro), suspendat (ro)
• Russian: неакти́вный (ru) (neaktívnyj), спя́щий (ru) (spjáščij), усну́вший (ru) (usnúvšij), лате́нтный (ru) (laténtnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: dìomhair
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: spicy

• Spanish: latente (es)

Noun

dormant (plural dormants)

1. (architecture) A crossbeam or joist.

Further reading

• “dormant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “dormant”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “dormant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• mordant

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɔʁ.mɑ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

Adjective

dormant (feminine dormante, masculine plural dormants, feminine plural dormantes)

1. dormant
2. asleep

Derived terms

• Belle au bois dormant

Participle

dormant

1. present participle of dormir

Further reading

• “dormant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• mordant

Norman

Verb

dormant

1. present participle of dormi