STAGNATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does stagnation mean? 

• STAGNATION (noun)
  The noun STAGNATION has 2 senses:

1. a state of inactivity (in business or art etc)

2. inactivity of liquids; being stagnant; standing still; without current or circulation

  Familiarity information: STAGNATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STAGNATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of inactivity (in business or art etc)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

doldrums; stagnancy; stagnation

Context example:

economic growth of less than 1% per year is considered to be economic stagnation

Hypernyms ("stagnation" is a kind of...):

inaction; inactiveness; inactivity (the state of being inactive)

Domain category:

art; artistic creation; artistic production (the creation of beautiful or significant things)

business; business enterprise; commercial enterprise (the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects)

Derivation:

stagnate (be idle; exist in a changeless situation)

stagnate (cause to stagnate)

stagnate (stand still)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inactivity of liquids; being stagnant; standing still; without current or circulation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

stagnancy; stagnation

Hypernyms ("stagnation" is a kind of...):

inaction; inactiveness; inactivity (the state of being inactive)

Derivation:

stagnate (cease to flow; stand without moving)

stagnate (cause to stagnate)

 Context examples 

It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The theatre or the rooms, where he was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant stupidity of private parties, in which they were getting more and more engaged; and Anne, wearied of such a state of stagnation, sick of knowing nothing, and fancying herself stronger because her strength was not tried, was quite impatient for the concert evening.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Eclipses don’t abide by stagnation, so this is a yes-no, on-off, now-or-never kind of month, especially if you are a Cancer with a birthday that falls on or near July 10—with a tolerance of four days before or after.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)