torpor

Alas, even the raised stakes cannot shake them from the emotional and intellectual torpor that bedevils Chekhov’s celebrated characters.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

A sluggish U.S. labor market appears to be coming out of its torpor.

From MarketWatch ● May 7, 2026

On June 14, I applied to renew my passport, bracing for months of frustration with bureaucratic apathy and torpor.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2025

While their immune systems keep the fungus at bay when the bat is active, the fungus gains the upper hand once the bats enter their state of torpor.

From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2024

Coming in from his work, he gorged himself on fried food and went to bed and to sleep in the resulting torpor.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

During one of these afternoon torpors, I came upon a word: acedia.

From The Guardian ● May 29, 2019

He was in one of his reptilian torpors again.

From "Abel's Island" by William Steig

In international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms of ferocious activity produced by terror.

From Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw

When he sank into one of his torpors, the quiet woman holding his pulse, he felt he was getting even with the wife and daughter who had made him so unhappy in past days.

From Command by William McFee

But the fumes and torpors of grief and pain were this morning dispersed.

From Tante by Anne Douglas Sedgwick