torpor

[tawr-per] /ˈtɔr pər/
noun
1.
sluggish inactivity or inertia.
2.
lethargic indifference; apathy.
3.
a state of suspended physical powers and activities.
4.
dormancy, as of a hibernating animal.
Origin
1600-10; < Latin: numbness, equivalent to torp(ēre) to be stiff or numb + -or -or1
Synonyms
2. stolidity, listlessness, lethargy. 4. sleepiness, slumber, drowsiness.
Examples from the web for torpor
  • Hopefully, they will awaken from their long torpor and rise to the challenges of the times.
  • Those who are content need robust political speech to rouse them from their civic torpor.
  • She was kneeling on the floor, ice in her hair, lost in some kind of hypothermic torpor.
  • The costly education in politics had led to political torpor.
  • If herbivores went into a torpor or hibernation they would have been easy prey for predators.
  • Millions of dollars of foreign aid and a building boom have dragged the place out of torpor.
  • In addition, it is both a cause and consequence of economic torpor that politics in the south remains the province of strongmen.
  • When housing arises from its torpor, it could find itself transformed.
  • It's time to wake up from the haze of the torpor we've been lurching under, for decades.
  • The atmosphere veered nastily between a sorry, unhygienic torpor and an ugly, vindictive frustration.
British Dictionary definitions for torpor

torpor

/ˈtɔːpə/
noun
1.
a state of torpidity
Derived Forms
torporific, adjective
Word Origin
C17: from Latin: inactivity, from torpēre to be motionless
Word Origin and History for torpor
n.

c.1600, from Latin torpor "numbness," from torpere "be numb," from PIE root *ster- "stiff" (cf. Old Church Slavonic trupeti, Lithuanian tirpstu "to become rigid;" Greek stereos "solid;" Old English steorfan "to die;" see sterile).

torpor in Medicine

torpor tor·por (tôr'pər)
n.

  1. A state of mental or physical inactivity or insensibility.

  2. Lethargy; apathy.

tor'po·rif'ic (-pə-rĭf'ĭk) adj.
Encyclopedia Article for torpor

a state of lowered body temperature and metabolic activity assumed by many animals in response to adverse environmental conditions, especially cold and heat. The torpid state may last overnight, as in temperate-zone hummingbirds and some insects and reptiles; or it may last for months, in the case of true hibernation and the winter torpor of many cold-blooded vertebrates.

Learn more about torpor with a free trial on Britannica.com