inertia

CEFRB2

/ɪnˈɜː.ʃə/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A tendency to remain still or continue in the same way.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    In a person, unwillingness to take action.

Examples

  • He continued to live as if by inertia.

  • Inertia is an important governing law.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
4
Parts of speech
1
Citations
3
Synonyms
4

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Lack of activity; sluggishness; said especially of the uterus, when, in labour, its contractions have nearly or wholly ceased.

  2. The property of a body that resists any change to its uniform motion; equivalent to its mass.

More examples

In context

  • Never underestimate the power of inertia.

  • Men […] have immense irresolution and inertia.

  • Not all the surviving veteran chiefs would actually fight. Some remained nominally in the resistance but in practice delayed at their bases, pretexting a lack of ammunition for their uncertain inertia.

Synonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

The heavy object's blank kept it from moving even when pushed.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Latin inertia (“lack of art or skill, inactivity, indolence”), from iners (“unskilled, inactive”), from in- (“without, not”) + ars (“skill, art”). Something close to the modern physics sense was first used in New Latin by Johannes Kepler.