Inertia: meaning, example and synonyms
Inertian. A tendency to stay unchanged; resistance to action or change.
Example
Institutional inertia, rather than any principled objection, explained why the university kept a grading system most of its faculty considered obsolete.
- Part of speech
- noun
- Synonyms
- inactivity, stagnation, sluggishness, passivity
- Antonyms
- momentum, dynamism, activity, vigor
- Memory tip
- Latin iners = "idle": inert things stay put until pushed.
Inertia is in batch 6. Study it with the rest of the batch, then pass the batch quiz to learn it. No account needed; progress is saved on this device.
Check yourself: Inertia in context
Although the committee admitted that the old filing system wasted hours each week, sheer ______ kept it in place for another decade, since no one wanted to bear the cost of retraining the staff.
Answer: inertia. Keeping a flawed system only because no one wants to change it is inertia, resistance to change. Ubiquity, summation and refinement don't describe a failure to act.
After the initial burst of reform, the movement lost its energy, and the ______ that followed allowed the old practices to return almost unnoticed.
Answer: inertia. A loss of energy that lets old habits creep back is inertia. Commonality (a shared trait), summation (a closing summary) and ubiquity (being everywhere) don't describe stalled reform.