dormancy
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of dormancy
Explanation
A period of inactivity, with no moving or growing, is dormancy. A bear is in a stage of dormancy when it hibernates: both its heart rate and body temperature become very low and it doesn't do much besides sleep. You can describe any state of deep sleep or profound calm and quiet as dormancy, like your weekend of dormancy after an incredibly hectic week at school. It's mainly used in a more scientific way, though, to talk about the dormancy some animals go through in the winter in order to save valuable energy or the dormancy of certain plants during a dry season. Other things that are temporarily inactive, like volcanoes, also experience dormancy.
Vocabulary lists containing dormancy
Plants (Botany) - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Summer dormancy has turned the tall stalks of wand buckwheat brown and bare, except for tiny balls of pink flowers, but the plants should leaf out again in the spring.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 22, 2025
"This is a critical time of year for our native wildlife – with birds nesting and other animals such as amphibians and reptiles coming out of winter dormancy and starting to breed."
From BBC • Apr. 25, 2025
The third installment of the “28 Years” zombie franchise reboots the series after more than a decade of dormancy following 2007’s “28 Weeks Later.”
From Salon • Jan. 3, 2025
Leaving ludicrous Civil War–era laws on the books in their dormancy was easier politically than going out of your way to excise them, just in case.
From Slate • Apr. 11, 2024
Other variation, such as that in seed dispersal mechanisms or seed dormancy, would have gone unrecognized by humans before the rise of modern botany.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
