Make Your Point: STAGNATE

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pronounce STAGNATE:

STAG nate

connect this word to others:

Are you stagnating at work? Is your career stagnant? Don't worry, I'm not selling you anything, just sympathizing. If you said "yes," then you feel like your work life is going nowhere: you're not learning anything, you're not changing or developing as a person, and you're not climbing any higher toward any goals. It's awful. It's like you're swimming around in circles in a nasty little pond.

Another word for that feeling of stagnation is m__ed, meaning "stuck in the same spot, as if you're trapped in a bog or a swamp." Can you recall it?

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Stagnate," the verb, and "stagnant," the adjective, trace back to the Latin stagnatum, which meant "a pond, a swamp, or any other body of standing water."

(Source)

To stagnate is to stand still, in a bad way. In a literal sense, stagnant water or stagnant air gets pretty nasty. And in a figurative sense, stagnant conversations, careers, and communities get pretty dull and unpleasant, too: they badly need to be updated with something fresh and new.

In other words, things that stagnate stay the same or become worse instead of flowing or changing.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, usually the intransitive kind: "During the pandemic, many children stagnated in their math and reading skills."

Other forms:

Stagnated, stagnating; stagnation.

The adjective is "stagnant." When things are stagnant, they're like a nasty pond: staying still and failing to flow, freshen, or change.

The adverb is "stagnantly," but it sounds a little awkward: "The dark water stood stagnantly;" "The team played stagnantly this season."

how to use it:

Pick the common, formal, nasty-sounding word "stagnate" when you want to emphasize how troublesome or disturbing it is when something fails to change or fails to improve.

Talk about things that stagnate, like wages, projects, conflicts, conversations, educations, careers, etc.

Or, to use the adjective, talk about stagnant water, air, or swamps. The adjective rarely sees figurative use, but you can certainly do it: talk about stagnant wages, projects, conflicts and so on.

examples:

"The canals were choked with reeds and mud, and pools of stagnant water gave birth to swarms of flies."
— George R. R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons, 2012

"Back in Detroit, the labor war had stagnated, with each side accusing the other of failing to communicate."
— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie, 1997

has this page helped you understand "stagnate"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "stagnate" without saying "stay the same" or "get all boring and crusty."

try it out:

In The Conversation, Jeanna Sybert argued that social media platforms can stay the same without stagnating:

"Classifying [social media] platforms as dead, dying or alive can be limiting. Such a frame often operates according to a capitalist logic in which 'growth' means life and 'stagnation' signals death.... Platforms are not just profit-driven businesses but gathering places with rhythms and cycles of their own. They are also cultural artifacts."

In other words, social media platforms can pulse with life without growing or changing, and that's not stagnation.

Talk about how stagnating is a little bit different from staying the same. And, with social media platforms in mind as an example, talk about something else that could stay consistent, or stay the same, and that would be a good thing: you wouldn't call it stagnation.

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

This month, our game is Botched Songs!

Check out the botched lyrics to a holiday song, and see if you can give me the botched title. It'll include a form of a word we've studied before.

For example, if the real song is "Jingle Bell Rock," then the botched one might be "Jingle Quell Rock." Or if the real song is "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas," then the botched one might be "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like a Chrysalis."

If you need some clues, highlight them to reveal them. And to see the answer, scroll all the way down. Your answer might be different than mine but just as good. Enjoy!

Try this one today:

Rudolph the ____ reindeer
Had some very lengthy prose.
And if his mouth was running,
You would never see it close.
—from "Rudolph the _____ Reindeer"

Clue 1: The word in the blank means… too wordy: going on for too long, using too many words

Clue 2: The word in the blank starts with the letter… V

Clue 3: The word in the blank sounds like… it could almost rhyme with the word "red-nosed," but it would rhyme more precisely with "her dose" and "were close."

review this word:

1. The opposite of STAGNANT could be

A. STILL or QUIET.
B. PAIRED or UNITED.
C. MOBILE or DEVELOPING.

2. In Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand wrote, "Pollard fidgeted in the crowd, slurping up champagne and, like everyone else, stagnating in _____."

A. glee
B. boredom
C. eager anticipation

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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