inertia

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

• (UK, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈɜː.ʃə/, /ɪˈnɜː.ʃə/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈɝ.ʃə/, /ɪˈnɝ.ʃə/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ʃə

inertia (countable and uncountable, plural inertias or inertiae or inertiæ)

1. (physics, uncountable or countable) The property of a body that resists any change to its uniform motion; equivalent to its mass.
2. (figuratively) In a person, unwillingness to take action.
   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter II, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book IV (Terror):

     Men […] have immense irresolution and inertia.

   • 1970 August 12 [1969 January 15], John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution‎, New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 261:

     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.

   • 2014 March 9, Jacob Steinberg, “Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals”, in The Guardian:

     City had been woeful, their anger at their own inertia summed up when Samir Nasri received a booking for dissent, and they did not have a shot on target until the 66th minute.

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

• (unwillingness to take action): idleness, laziness, sloth, slothfulness

• inert
• inertness

• “inertia”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “inertia”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “inertia”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• iranite

From Latin inertia.

• IPA^(key): /ˈinertiɑ/, [ˈine̞rˌt̪iɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -iɑ
• Syllabification^(key): i‧ner‧ti‧a

inertia

1. inertia

   Synonyms: hitaus, vitka, jatkavuus

• “inertia”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02

From Proto-Italic *enartjā. Related to iners (“without skill; inactive”), from in- (“not”) + ars (“art, skill”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /iˈner.ti.a/, [ɪˈnɛrt̪iä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /iˈner.t͡si.a/, [iˈnɛrt̪͡s̪iä]

inertia f (genitive inertiae); first declension

1. want of art or skill, unskillfulness, ignorance

   Antonyms: calliditās, sapientia

2. (by extension) inactivity, idleness, laziness, indolence

   Synonyms: pigritia, sēgnitia, ignāvia, dēsidia, sōcordia, ōtium

   Antonyms: impigritās, alacritās, strēnuitās, āctīvitās

First-declension noun.

• iners
• inersitūdō
• inerticulus

• “inertia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “inertia”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• inertia in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• inertia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

inertia m (definite singular inertiaen, indefinite plural inertiaer, definite plural inertiaene)

1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by inerti