TORPOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does torpor mean? 

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

1. a state of motor and mental inactivity with a partial suspension of sensibility

2. inactivity resulting from lethargy and lack of vigor or energy

  Familiarity information: TORPOR used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TORPOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of motor and mental inactivity with a partial suspension of sensibility

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

torpidity; torpor

Context example:

he fell into a deep torpor

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

physical condition; physiological condition; physiological state (the condition or state of the body or bodily functions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "torpor"):

hibernation (the torpid or resting state in which some animals pass the winter)

lassitude; lethargy; sluggishness (a state of comatose torpor (as found in sleeping sickness))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inactivity resulting from lethargy and lack of vigor or energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

listlessness; torpidity; torpidness; torpor

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

passiveness; passivity (the trait of remaining inactive; a lack of initiative)

 Context examples 

Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I know all your sisters have done for me since—for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor—and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)