latency

Etymology

latent + -cy

noun

1. Concealment; the state of being latent; the state of being hidden.
2. Dormancy; the state of being inactive.
3. (electronics) A delay, an interval between the initiation of something and the occurrence.
4. (medicine) The delay between a stimulus and the response it triggers in an organism.
5. A stage in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of the psychosexual development of children where children become asexual until their sexual desires come back at puberty.