DORMANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dormant mean? 

• DORMANT (adjective)
  The adjective DORMANT has 4 senses:

1. in a condition of biological rest or suspended animation

2. (of e.g. volcanos) not erupting and not extinct

3. lying with head on paws as if sleeping

4. inactive but capable of becoming active

  Familiarity information: DORMANT used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DORMANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a condition of biological rest or suspended animation

Synonyms:

dormant; hibernating; torpid

Context example:

torpid frogs

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 2

Meaning:

(of e.g. volcanos) not erupting and not extinct

Synonyms:

dormant; inactive

Context example:

a dormant volcano

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:

Lying with head on paws as if sleeping

Synonyms:

dormant; sleeping

Similar:

unerect (not upright in position or posture)

Domain category:

heraldry (the study and classification of armorial bearings and the tracing of genealogies)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Inactive but capable of becoming active

Synonyms:

abeyant; dormant

Context example:

her feelings of affection are dormant but easily awakened

Similar:

inactive (not active physically or mentally)

Derivation:

dormancy (a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction)

 Context examples 

These dormant bacteria are in a low metabolic state.

(Changing salt marsh conditions send resident microbes into dormancy, NSF)

These cells normally lie dormant inside adult muscle.

(Controlling Muscle Repair, NIH)

A common virus that remains dormant in most people.

(EBV, NCI Dictionary)

Supper over, the tables dormant were cleared away as by magic and trestles and bancals arranged around the blazing fire, for there was a bitter nip in the air.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Front-line drugs attack TB cells as they multiply, but a small proportion of the bacteria survive by going dormant.

(Vitamin C Might Shorten Tuberculosis Treatment Time, Study Indicates, VOA/Steve Baragona)

That all changed when new, higher spectral resolution data from the W. M. Keck Observatory on the dormant volcano Maunakea in Hawaii suggested that the scientists weren't actually seeing magnesium sulfates on Europa.

(Table Salt Compound Spotted on Europa, NASA)

About 30 million years ago, a disturbance in the transition zone caused an upwelling of magma material to rise to the surface, forming a now-dormant volcano under the Atlantic Ocean, then forming Bermuda.

(Scientists discover a new way volcanoes form, NSF)

The team of researchers not only improved on the amount of energy produced and stored, they managed to reactivate a process in the algae that has been dormant for millennia.

(Scientists pioneer a new way to turn sunlight into fuel, University of Cambridge)

The control mice showed that URI is expressed in a specific dormant stem cell population located in the intestinal crypts (called crypts of Lieberkühn).

(New Way Discovered for Protecting against High-Dose Radiation Damage, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)