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Listless vs Dormant - What's the difference?

listless | dormant | Related terms |

Listless is a related term of dormant.


As adjectives the difference between listless and dormant

is that listless is lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness while dormant is inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.

listless

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness.
  • * 1818 , , Frankenstein , ch. 18:
  • I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless .
  • * 1861 , , The Stokesley Secret , ch. 6:
  • What an entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in lesson-time. . . . Poor, listless , stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes!
  • * 1901 , , The Hero , ch. 21:
  • The scene with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now, indifferent to what happened.
  • * 2005 Nov. 29, Aryn Baker, " John Hardy: Bali Guy," Time :
  • Listless , inattentive, distracted,” he recited. “A daydreamer. Tries his best, but is too slow.”

    Derived terms

    * listlessly * listlessness

    Anagrams

    *

    dormant

    English

    Alternative forms

    * dormaunt (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.
  • Grass goes dormant during the winter, waiting for spring before it grows again.
    The bank account was dormant ; there had been no transactions in months.
    This volcano is dormant but not extinct.
  • * Burke
  • It is by lying dormant a long time, or being very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people.
  • (heraldry) In a sleeping posture; distinguished from couchant.
  • a lion dormant

    Antonyms

    * active * active, extinct

    Anagrams

    * ----