Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Inert   /ɪnˈərt/   Listen
adjective
Inert  adj.  
1.
Destitute of the power of moving itself, or of active resistance to motion; as, matter is inert.
2.
Indisposed to move or act; very slow to act; sluggish; dull; inactive; indolent; lifeless. "The inert and desponding party of the court." "It present becomes extravagant, then imbecile, and at length utterly inert."
3.
Not having or manifesting active properties; not affecting other substances when brought in contact with them; powerless for an expected or desired effect; as, the noble gases are chemically inert.
Synonyms: Inactive; dull; passive; indolent; sluggish; slothful; lazy; lifeless; irresolute; stupid; senseless; insensible. Inert, Inactive, Sluggish. A man may be inactive from mere lack of stimulus to effort; but one who is inert has something in his constitution or his habits which operates like a weight holding him back from exertion. Sluggish is still stronger, implying some defect of temperament which directly impedes action. Inert and inactive are negative, sluggish is positive. "Even the favored isles... Can boast but little virtue; and, inert Through plenty, lose in morals what they gain In manners victims of luxurious ease." "Doomed to lose four months in inactive obscurity." "Sluggish Idleness, the nurse of sin, Upon a slothful ass he chose to ride."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Inert" Quotes from Famous Books



... its dump was hidden under a mantle of green. Even its mouth, once a black hole in the hillside verdure, was curtained by a veil of creepers. There was game and there was water and there he stayed. At first he rested, then idle and inert lay among the ferns on the top of the dump, staring at the distance, squinting up at the sky, deadened with the weight of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... interrupted the conversation. The two youths looked down. The deck plan of the tug lay flat and empty save for the inert form of Gaskin. The noise came from inside the cabin and arose to a shouting. It was a drunken ribald sound. A ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... instead ease, wealth, magnificence, and that repose which springs from long prosperity, that the new age at last began. Europe was, as it were, a fallow field, beneath which lay buried the civilization of the Old World. Behind stretched the centuries of mediaevalism, intellectually barren and inert. Of the future there were as yet but faint foreshadowings. Meanwhile, the force of the nations who were destined to achieve the coming transformation was unexhausted, their physical and mental faculties were unimpaired. No ages of enervating luxury, of intellectual endeavor, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... however arises another dilemma, for if the Deity has really those attributes of power and justice, there would never have been occasion for such temperaneous interpositions. A particular providence must indeed prove one of these two principles, either that God was imperfect in his design, or that inert matter is inimical to the properties of God. If that wished for interposition of the Deity is put off to a future existence, I cannot help observing, that future day has been already a long while waited ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner

... integration within the evolving whole. Thus the regroupings of tamas reals marks the differentiation which takes place within the mahat but through its stage as bhutadi. Bhutadi is absolutely homogeneous and inert, devoid of all physical and chemical characters except quantum or mass. The second stadium tanmatra represents subtle matter, vibratory, impingent, radiant, instinct with potential energy. These "potentials" arise from the unequal ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com