stationary

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stacionarie, also stacionarye,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin statiōnārius (“belonging to a detachment of soldiers on guard duty”),^[5][6][7] from statiō (“a standing, post, station”) and the suffix -ārius.^[5][2][3] In classical Latin the adjective is recorded only in the military sense;^[2][5] post-classical Latin used it of a planet with a fixed station (Isidore, before 636), and later for "abiding", for canons bound to residence, and as a noun for a shopkeeping merchant or a bookseller.^[5] Etymonline takes the English word via Anglo-Latin,^[2] while the American Heritage Dictionary has it through Old French stationnaire and Medieval Latin;^[4] the OED notes that the French word, recorded from the 13th century for something that does not move and for a planet with no apparent motion, may have influenced the English senses.^[5] It is related to station.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a planet or the sun, having for a time no apparent motion across the sky: about 1450, in a translation of Richard of Wallingford's Exafrenon.^[5] Etymonline dates this astronomical sense to the late 14th century,^[2] and the first edition of the OED to 1426.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From astronomy the word spread in the 17th century to anything fixed in one place: residing in one place rather than wandering (1604), meant to stay in one spot, as a machine part in operation (1631), and simply standing still (1668).^[5][2] The transferred sense "neither advancing nor declining, unchanged" is recorded from 1628.^[5][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "fixed; not progressive".^[9] Later uses are technical: a disease recurring in one place, as in stationary fever (1684), a battle fought without either side advancing (1737), the mathematical sense (1834), a statistical series in equilibrium (1938), and a satellite that seems to stay above one point of the earth (1947).^[5][7] The word was also used for "of a station", of a military post or of special church services,^[7] and in the sense "of a stationer" it was spelled stationery by association with that word.^[5][10]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – of a planet, having no apparent motion.^[5]
• 1604 – residing in one place, not migratory.^[5]
• 1628 – remaining unchanged in condition.^[5][2]
• 1631 – fixed in position, not meant to move.^[5]
• 1668 – standing still, not moving at the moment.^[5]
• 1684 – of a disease, recurring in one locality.^[5]
• 1685 – first known use of sense 1 in Merriam-Webster.^[3]
• 1737 – of a battle, fought without advance or retreat.^[5]
• 1834 – in mathematics, not instantaneously changing.^[5]
• 1938 – in statistics, of a series in equilibrium.^[5]
• 1947 – of an artificial satellite, staying over one point.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not moving; standing still: The bus was stationary at the lights when the van hit it.^[11][3][5]
2. Fixed in one place; not meant or able to be moved: a stationary exercise bike.^[11][3][5]
3. Not changing in condition or amount; stable: The town's population has stayed stationary for a decade.^[11][3][5]
4. Staying in one place; not migratory or itinerant.^[11][5]
5. (astronomy) Of a planet, seeming to have no motion across the sky.^[5][7]
6. Of an artificial satellite, geostationary.^[5][7]
7. (mathematics) Not changing at a given instant; having a derivative equal to zero.^[5][7]
8. (statistics) Of a time series, having properties that do not change with time.^[5][7]

Word family

• unstationary
• geostationary
• nonstationary
• stationary engine
• stationary front
• stationary bicycle
• stationary wave

Related words

• station
• stationer
• stationery
• static

Usage notes

Stationary and stationery, writing materials, are often confused: the adjective means "not moving or changing", the noun means paper, envelopes and the like.^[12][11][13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
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. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman