stagnation
- 01 C1 Advanced
a long period where an economy or a society does not grow or improve.
a prolonged period of little or no growth in an economy or social system. Uncountable in its general sense.
Simple“The country suffered from years of economic stagnation, with few new jobs created.”
In context“Economists warned that without significant structural reform, the nation faced a decade of stagnation and declining living standards.”
UsageOften used with 'economic' or 'industrial'.
- 02 C2 Proficiency
when water or air stops moving and becomes dirty or smells bad.
the state of being still or not flowing, typically resulting in a lack of oxygen or the buildup of pollutants.
Simple“The stagnation of the pond water led to a bad smell and lots of insects.”
In context“The lack of tidal flow caused significant stagnation in the lagoon, negatively impacting the local fish population.”
SynonymsAntonyms
“The rule change comes amid wider stagnation across the UK online dating market.”
“Three decades of wage stagnation and rising costs have made the category less secure – and membership of it worth considerably less than it once was.”
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).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.