dormant

dormant

(dôr′mənt)

adj.

1. Not awake; asleep: "[He] lay dormant on the scruffy couch, his mouth open, reading glasses slumped on his swollen nostrils" (Steven Heighton).

2. Present but not active or manifest though capable of becoming so: "a harrowing experience which ... lay dormant but still menacing" (Charles Jackson).

3. Temporarily inactive: a dormant volcano.

4. Being in a condition of biological rest or inactivity characterized by cessation of growth or development and the suspension of many metabolic processes: a dormant bud; a dormant bacterium.

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dor′man·cy n.

The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

dormancy

(dor′măn-sē)

Temporary inactivity; e.g., a state of transiently reduced metabolic activity.

dormant, adjective

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