Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use dormant in a sentence

31 example sentences · adjective, noun

Dormant means inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended. Example: “Grass goes dormant during the winter, waiting for spring before it grows again.”

Examples of dormant by meaning

adjectiveInactive, 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.

adjectiveIn a sleeping posture; distinguished from couchant.

  • a lion dormant

More sentences with dormant

  • Malware's sometimes been known to sit dormant for a long time.From the entry know
  • After a brief systemic phase defeated by the immune system, the infection localized to certain areas where it went dormant.From the entry localize
  • The volcano is inactive, but is only dormant.From the entry inactive
  • Triops and fairy shrimp are small crustaceans that can survive years lying dormant in drought conditions.2023 September 5, Amelia Neath, “Three-eyed ‘dinosaur shrimp’ are waking up in the desert after Burning Man washout”, in The Independent. From the entry fairy shrimp
  • The best time to make your own fedge is in the winter when the willow is dormant.2011, Alice Bowe, High-Impact, Low-Carbon Gardening: 1001 Ways to Garden Sustainably, Portland, Or.: Timber Press, →ISBN, page 79. From the entry fedge
  • Instead, she secretes a narcotic fluid which is designed to keep her pouchlings dormant.2011, Arinn Dembo, The Deacon's Tale, page 301. From the entry pouchling
  • Reactivation of a dormant atavistic gene could account for the abnormal costocoracoid ligament in humans.2006, Roger E Stevenson, Judith G Hall, Human malformations and related anomalies. From the entry atavistic
  • Indeed, that same mewl added to the sleepy image that filled the dormant house.1995, Lídia Jorge, Natália Costa, Ronald W. Sousa, transl., The Murmuring Coast, page 89. From the entry mewl
  • Certainly no one can accuse a bunch of hypos of lying dormant during the noon-hour.1953, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, General Exchange Insurance Corporation, Motors Insurance Corporation, News and Views, page 30. From the entry hypo
  • Did you spray them with any oil solution this spring, in the dormant season?1930, Legislative Establishment Appropriation Bill, 1931: Hearings Before Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriations […]…. From the entry scalicide
  • It can lie dormant in the body for years, then later cause severe illness, including persistent high fever.2026 February 12, Wendy Ruderman, “Traveling to Southern Europe? Here's what to know about a deadly parasite active there”, in The…. From the entry visceral leishmaniasis
  • Dozens of energy beacons—mostly dormant—had flared online across the globe.2025 May 23, William Ubagan, “Chapter 7 The Shadow Protocol”, in The Lost Travelers, Publish Drive. From the entry D.U.M.B.
  • Sent while dormant, these plants arrive unpotted, with a small ball of soil or some moisture-retaining material around the roots.1997, Roger Holmes, Taylor's guide to ornamental grasses. From the entry unpotted
  • At night, they go into a dormant state.1994, Edward Rietman, Genesis Redux: Experiments Creating Artificial Life. From the entry photovore
  • Epicormic branching often follows disturbances, such as thinning or top breakage, which stimulate the sprouting of dormant buds on the boles.1964, Arnold Hedlund, Epicormic Branching in North Louisiana Delta, Southern Forest Experiment Station. From the entry epicormic
  • Tests on the two retinoids, combined with computer modelling, showed that the compounds killed not only normal MRSA cells, but dormant, or “persister”, cells too.2018 March 28, Ian Sample, The Guardian. From the entry retinoid
  • The acres of parkland and the huge volcano thing (it is dormant, isn’t it?) allow for plenty of outdoor romping when the weather holds.2015, Edinburgh, Time Out Digital Ltd, →ISBN, page 168. From the entry higgledy
  • Threshers reproduce via spores that lie dormant for millennia, yet are robust enough to survive prolonged periods in deep space and atmospheric re-entry.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Thresher Maws Codex entry. From the entry spore
  • At that time, the Alliance allowed survey fleets to activate any dormant mass relays discovered, a practice considered dangerous and irresponsible by Council-aligned races.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: First Contact War Codex entry. From the entry first contact
  • It may be that, living among primitive surroundings, the dormant primitive deep within the white man is drawn towards the absolute primitive in the aboriginal.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 54. From the entry primitive
  • A nonmoving empty train, or a layup, was easiest to pin down at night or on weekends when trains would park on the dormant stretches of express tracks.2010, Michele Carlo, Fish Out of Agua: My Life on Neither Side of the (Subway) Tracks, New York City: Citadel Press, →ISBN, page 88. From the entry layup
  • However, this section's “Case Occurrence” is a good example of a powerline-contact hazard specific to an aerial lift, and shows the lift boom as a dormant hazard.2007, David V. MacCollum, Construction Safety Engineering Principles, →ISBN, page 111. From the entry aerial lift
  • They reveal within a few minutes of conversation the sonliness and fatherliness that has been lying dormant within each of them for lo, so many years.2002 March 6, Eddie Tafoya, “‘Men’s Room’ doesn’t pull its weight”, in The Santa Fe New Mexican, 153rd year, number 65, page B-3. From the entry sonliness
  • Even in his Ma's womb, you would have had to define Spud less as a foetus, more as a set of dormant drug and personality problems.1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 328. From the entry polis
  • Male snakes are expected to return from hunting in September, at which point it’s expected the massive knot of snakes will hibernate and the feed will go dormant until spring.July 17, 2024, Adam Kovac, “Livestream Offers a Close-Up View of Thousands of Rattlesnakes in a ‘Mega Den’”, in Gizmodo. From the entry knot
  • Moreover, we provide some reason to think that, contrary to a substantial number of philosphers claim, among those non-occurrent beliefs there are not only dormant beliefs but also tacit beliefs.2013, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Rik Peels, “Some Metaphysical Implications of a Credible Ethics of Belief”, in New Essays on Belief, Palgrave…. From the entry non-occurrent
  • They lay thick-walled eggs that withstand summer drying and winter freezing, lying dormant in the mud until they hatch out as naupliuses when wetted by the first heavy spring rain.1987, Ralph [Morris] Buchsbaum, Mildred Buchsbaum, John Pearse, Vicki Pearse, “Lobsters and Other Arthropods: Crustaceans”, in Animals…. From the entry nauplius

Meaning of dormant

  1. adjective Inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.
  2. adjective In a sleeping posture; distinguished from couchant.
  3. adjective Leaning.

Full definition of dormant

Questions about dormant in a sentence

How do you use dormant in a sentence?
Dormant is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Grass goes dormant during the winter, waiting for spring before it grows again.”
What is a short sentence with dormant?
“a lion dormant”
What does dormant mean?
Dormant means inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dormant (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use dormant in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/dormant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.