stagnation

noun

Etymology: From stagnate + -ation (suffix denoting an action or process, or its result), Stagnate is derived from stagnāt-, the participial stem of Latin stagnāre, the present active infinitive of stāgnō (“of waters: to cover the land as a lake, to become a pool, to stagnate”), from stāgnum (“body of standing water (lake, swamp, etc.)”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂g- (“to drip; to seep”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).

1. The state of being stagnant; (countable) an instance of this.

   “Factors known to encourage the growth of harmful bacteria inside cooling systems include the stagnation of the water.”

   “[S]ometimes at the Bottom of the Deep vvaters there ſeem'd to be a ſtagnation of the Sea for a great depth, ſo that till ſuch a height they [divers] could riſe directly upvvards, but that at other heights they vvould be carried avvay by the leſſe deep-vvaters; ſo as to be found vvhen they came to emerge a great vvay off from that point of the ſurface vvhich vvas perpendicular to that place at the Bottom, vvhence they began to aſcend.”

2. The state of being stagnant; (countable) an instance of this.

   “The general concern about industrial stagnation inspired an overhaul of the patent system.”

   “I am now in the sixty-fifth year of my age, and having been the greater part of my days a man of pleasure, the decay of my faculties is a stagnation of my life.”

3. The state of being stagnant; (countable) an instance of this.

   “[T]he Credit Cycle, though guilty of disastrous excesses and grave crimes, has a part to play in a progressive society, and […] an attempt to check it altogether might produce stagnation as well as stability.”