Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Being quiet, still, or at rest; inactive. See Synonyms at latent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Resting; being in a state of repose; still; not moving: as, a quiescent body or fluid.
- In philology, silent; not sounded; having no sound: as, a quiescent letter.
- In biology, physiologically inactive or motionless; resting, as an insect in the chrysalis state, or an encysted amœba.
- n. In philology, a silent letter.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Being in a state of repose; at rest; still; not moving.
- adj. Not ruffed with passion; unagitated; not in action; not excited; quiet; dormant; resting.
- adj. (Gram.) Not sounded; silent.”
- n. (Gram.) A silent letter.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (pathology) causing no symptoms
- adj. not active or activated
- adj. being quiet or still or inactive
- adj. marked by a state of tranquil repose
Etymologies
- From Latin quiescens, present participle of quiescere, from quies (Wiktionary)
- Latin quiēscēns, quiēscent-, present participle of quiēscere, to rest, from quiēs, quiet; see quiet. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So – how long will the people of Azerbaijan remain quiescent?”
Global Voices in English » Azerbaijan: Detained video bloggers go on trial
“So - how long will the people of Azerbaijan remain quiescent?”
Global Voices in English » Azerbaijan: Reaction to Hajizade-Milli trial
“It can be challenging for therapy to kill nondividing cells sometimes referred to as quiescent cells.”
“In summary, our findings suggest that the Cdk4-p16Ink4a pathway regulates the long-term quiescent state of β-cells within islets and of potential progenitors within the pancreatic ductal epithelium (”
“In both sexes, organs up to this time quiescent, that is, as to any functional action, take on rapidly an independent life, assert their own character, and take up their peculiar work.”
“The unpointed consonant-text can be made essentially clearer by writing "plene", i.e., by using the so-called quiescent letters (matres lectionis).”
“Twice she attempted to rise and interrupt him, but Sir Roger Kirkpatrick having fixed his eyes on her with a menacing determination to prevent her, she found herself obliged to remain quiescent.”
“She lay absolutely crushed, in a kind of quiescent hysterics, tortured.”
“No one was surprised to see the Mother Superior in the cloister so early, for she was often the first to rise and almost always the last to go to rest; the novices said that the little white volcano never slept at all, but was only 'quiescent' during a part of the night.”
“Like most other adult stem cells, blood stem cells maintain a resting, or "quiescent," state when they are not differentiating or self-renewing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘quiescent’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Ballardian
All things descriptive from JG
Ballardoperation mindfuck, pataphysics, wahrheitssensible..., polymorphism, postprandial, covalent, stygian, lucus a non lucendo, kafkaesque, leitmotif, fugacious, ablate and 77 more...
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Cool Words
Words I'd like to see enter common usage.
fricatrice, inchoate, imparlance, apothegm, ductile, parley, frisson, quiescent, redolent, insouciance, feckless, caviling and 25 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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GRE
GRE words from Princeton Review guide, ETS GRE Book from 2010 (for revised test), New Yorker/NY Times articles.
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 124 more...
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passive
words of inaction
tepid, languid, stagnant, inertia, effete, mired, soporific, reticent, taciturn, mollify, nebbish, milquetoast and 13 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1827 more...
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MY COLLECTION
COLLECT FROM DIFFERENT PAPERS,WEBSITES,BOOKS AND MOVIES.
VAUDEVILLE, herbivores, BANDWAGON, PREY, squander, squabbling, Concierge, persuade, dethrone, cacophony, maize, ubiquitous and 98 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for quiescent.

kingparton The body grew quiescent, receptive—a chrysalis, not dead, but reviving, curling into a further acceptance of the same process, the same physical position.
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, Sister Age Nov 23, 2011
Marnwave This is such a romantic word. I think sometimes people use it too much :( Oct 9, 2011