Wiktionary

dormant

English

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A heraldic lion dormant.

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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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

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Antonyms

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

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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dormant (plural dormants)

  1. (architecture) A crossbeam or joist.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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French

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Pronunciation

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Adjective

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

  1. dormant
  2. asleep

Derived terms

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Participle

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dormant

  1. present participle of dormir

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Norman

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Verb

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dormant

  1. present participle of dormi
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