adj.
- Not active or tending to be active.
- Not functioning or operating; out of use: inactive machinery.
- Not being in continuous use or operation: an inactive brokerage account.
- Retired from duty or service.
- Chemistry. Not readily participating in chemical reactions; inert.
- Biology. Marked by the absence or reduction of activity, such as the ability to cause infection.
- Medicine. Quiescent. Used especially of a disease.
- Physics. Showing no optical activity in polarized light.
inactivity in'ac·tiv'i·ty or in·ac'tive·ness n.
SYNONYMS inactive, idle, inert, passive, dormant, torpid, supine. These adjectives mean not involved in or disposed to movement or activity. Inactive simply indicates absence of activity: retired but not inactive; an inactive factory. Idle refers to persons who are not doing anything or are not busy: employees idle because of the strike. It also refers to what is not in use or operation: idle machinery. Inert describes things powerless to move themselves or to produce a desired effect; applied to persons, it implies lethargy or sluggishness, especially of mind or spirit: "The Honorable Mrs. Jamieson . . . was fat and inert, and very much at the mercy of her old servants" (Elizabeth C. Gaskell). Passive implies being reactive instead of proactive: "in an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength" (Nathaniel Hawthorne). Dormant refers principally to a state of suspended activity but often implies the possibility of renewal: dormant feelings of affection. Torpid suggests sluggishness or apathy: "It is a man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age" (Samuel Johnson). Supine implies abject lack of will: "No other colony showed such supine, selfish helplessness in allowing her own border citizens to be mercilessly harried" (Theodore Roosevelt).
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