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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > STASIS

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pronounce STASIS:

STAY sis
Your browser does not support the audio element.

connect this word to others:

As we check out the word stasis, see if you can recall a closely related word.

Literally "to put a change in place," the word m___stasi__ means "to spread to a new place in a harmful way, like cancer."

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

definition:

You can trace the word "stasis" to Greek, where it means "a point, a condition, or the act of standing still."

In English, we first used "stasis" to mean "a condition where blood stands still in the body, instead of circulating like it should."

That's still the basic metaphor underlying the word "stasis." Today, when you say that something is in stasis, you mean it's at an unhealthy standstill, staying the same instead of changing or moving like it should.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, the uncountable kind: "They're in stasis;" "They're coming out of stasis;" "They went into an emotional stasis."

Other forms: 

None are common.

how to use it:

To strike a tone that's formal and scientific, instead of picking a word like "stillness," "limbo," "stagnation," or "inactivity," pick "stasis."

Talk about people being or living in stasis. Or say that people are in moments of stasis, days of stasis, months of stasis, etc. Or, talk about people entering or exiting stasis.

You might also get more specific and say that people or groups are in emotional stasis, romantic stasis, professional stasis, bureaucratic stasis, political stasis, economic stasis, and so on.

And in the context of science fiction, especially for stories about time travel and space travel, you could talk about humans in stasis, or more specifically cryostasis: in a deep-freeze for a while.

examples:

"The developed world has reached a fragile stasis in which a high level of debt is only sustainable with very low interest rates." 
— Staff, The Economist, 8 January 2015

"Polling over the last year has detected a notable shift in public opinion after decades of relative stasis: For the first time, a majority of Americans say abortion is 'morally acceptable.'"
— Michael Levenson, New York Times, 24 June 2023

has this page helped you understand "stasis"?

   

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 "stasis" without saying "standstill" or "stagnation."

try it out:

In a review of a play, Rhoda Feng complained that it had "a sense of stasis." It "never ripened from a situation into a story," she said.

Talk about what she probably meant. Why would a sense of stasis be such a problem in a fictional story? And, could you make the same complaint about some particular show you've seen or book you've read?




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.

Our game for this month is the Game of Venery! 

Longtime readers may recognize this game from 2019, when we played with terms from James Lipton's book An Exaltation of Larks. This time, we’ll play with terms from Daniel E. Meyers's online Collective Noun Catalog.

To play, check out the two templates below, and have fun filling them in and sharing your inventions with your family. You can be as lofty, silly, or bawdy as you like. To see the way the terms actually appear in Meyers’s catalog, scroll to the bottom of the issue.

Try these today:

1. a panacea of _____

2. a/an _____ of home movies

review this word:

1. Opposites of STASIS include

A. MOTION and KINESIS.
B. LEAVE and DISMISSAL.
C. FRAMEWORK and CHASSIS.

2. When a war enters stasis, the fighting _____.

A. ends
B. pauses
C. intensifies




Answers to the review questions:
1. A
2. B

Answers to the game questions:

Your invented terms of venery can be anything you like!

Here are the ones from the catalog:
1. a panacea of laughter
2. an ambush of home movies

And here are mine:
1. a panacea of essential oils
2. a yawn of home movies


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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