dormancy

[dawr-muh n-see] /ˈdɔr mən si/
noun
1.
the state of being dormant.
Origin
1780-90; dorm(ant) + -ancy
Examples from the web for dormancy
  • The sap will start circulating and take them out of dormancy, then it gets cold again and freezes the rose.
  • At the end of the growing season, the leaf dies and the tuber returns to dormancy.
  • It blooms at the end of the rainy season, when many other trees are lapsing into dormancy and no longer making fruit.
  • Once they mature, the trees benefit from yearly pruning during dormancy.
  • Allow a few hips to form, completing the flowering cycle and ushering plants into dormancy.
  • Without humility, the intellect slips into catatonic dormancy.
  • Its dormancy since then however seems to have given the drug industry a chance to evolve and wise up.
  • Devolution exists friends, it is simply evolution in the state of dormancy.
  • In the absence of communiqués from headquarters, they revert to a larval stage of dormancy and let their grudges accrue.
  • The virus may still be able to pop out of dormancy and wreak havoc.
Word Origin and History for dormancy
n.

1789; see dormant + -cy.

Encyclopedia Article for dormancy

state of reduced metabolic activity adopted by many organisms under conditions of environmental stress or, often, as in winter, when such stressful conditions are likely to appear.

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