stagnation

Pronunciation

• UK: /stæɡˈneɪʃn̩/^[1]
• US: /stæɡˈneɪʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English stagnate + -ation.^[2][3][4][5] Stagnate is from Latin stāgnō (“to stagnate; to be overflowed”), from stāgnum (“pool, swamp, standing water”).^[2][6][3][7] The OED records the noun in 1665, a few years before the verb (1669).^[2] Etymonline traces stāgnum perhaps to Proto-Indo-European *stag- (“to seep, drip”),^[3] and Klein considers it probably related to Ancient Greek σταγών (stagṓn, “drop”) and στάζειν (stázein, “to let drop, drip”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The condition of water, ice or air that does not flow or move: 1665, in Marchamont Nedham's Medela Medicinæ;^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1660s, as the cessation of flow.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1707 physicians used it for the stopping of blood or other fluids in the body,^[2] later a specific medical sense, a local slowing or stopping of blood flow.^[4] The figurative sense, an unhealthy lack of activity or energy, is recorded from 1711, in Steele's Spectator,^[2][3] part of a wider pattern of describing inaction in terms of flowing water that began in the early 18th century.^[8] Johnson (1755) still gave only the physical sense, "stop of course; cessation of motion", with a quotation from Addison on vapours over Geneva.^[9] In economics it came to mean an absence of growth or a very low rate of growth,^[2][4] and the economist Lester Thurow titled a 1982 article in the New York Times Magazine "The Great Stagnation".^[10] In aeronautics a stagnation point is a point on the leading edge of a body where the air is at rest.^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1665 – the condition of being stagnant, of water, ice or air.^[2][3]
• 1707 – of blood or sap in a living body.^[2]
• 1711 – figurative, an unhealthy lack of activity; later, in economics, a lack of growth.^[2][3]
• 1926 – stagnation point, in aeronautics.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of being stagnant; a lack or stopping of flow or movement, as of water or air.^[12][2][4]
2. A lack of activity, growth or development; torpor: years of cultural stagnation.^[12][2]
3. (economics) An absence of economic growth, or a very low rate of it.^[2][4]
4. (medicine) A local slowing or stopping of the flow of blood or another body fluid.^[4][2]

Word family

• stagflation

Related words

• stagnant
• stagnate
• stagnancy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Great Stagnation", 30 September 2011
11. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster