latent

Etymology

From Middle English latent, latente, from Old French latent, from Latin latens, latentis, present participle of lateo (“lie hidden”).

adj

1. Existing or present but concealed or inactive.
   There is known latent demand for rail freight and the rail freight industry is working with Scottish businesses to develop new rail freight services, as environmental concerns are beginning to change the logistics choices of Scottish producers. August 12 2020, Philip Haigh, “Scotland reveals 2035 decarbonisation strategy”, in Rail, page 12
2. (pathology, of a virus) Remaining in an inactive or hidden phase; dormant.
   2008 July 2, Joe Palca, “Scientists Make Herpes Breakthrough”, abstract, All Things Considered, National Public Radio Those infected with a herpes virus are infected for life. That’s because the virus goes "latent." Sometimes, it awakes from its slumber, producing painful illnesses.
3. (biology) Lying dormant or hidden until circumstances are suitable for development or manifestation.

noun

1. (forensics) The residue left by a person's finger that can be made visible by a process such as powder dusting; a latent fingerprint.
   Once the latent prints have been visualized by the superglue and powder dusting techniques, they should be photographed again. Then the developed latents need to be lifted and placed on backing cards. The latent cards are documented by putting the case number, date and time of lifting, initials of person processing the evidence, and a sketch indicating the location of the lifted latent print on the back of the lift card, as shown in Photo 6.6. 2001, Henry C. Lee, Timothy Palmbach, Marilyn T. Miller, Henry Lee's Crime Scene Handbook, page 383
   Paralegal workers do not argue cases in court, and these crimescene fingerprint gatherers do not compare crime-scene latents to known prints of suspects and present their findings in court. 2008, Jim Fisher, Forensics Under Fire
2. (statistics) An underlying cause that can be inferred from statistical correlations; factor.
   These kinds of latents define the invariant dispositional properties enabling prediction and control of the external environment. Finally, there are the latents that underlie manifestation as relationships of power, as cause to effect, condition to occurrence, or dependent variable to independent variable. 1975, Rudolph J. Rummel, Understanding Conflict and War
   That is, the observed covariance between indicator y₁ and y₃ would mirror the understandable causal behavior of the corresponding underlying latents. 2007, William Outhwaite, Stephen Turner, The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology, page 166
   If one were to compute the reproduced covariances among the latents of the structural model, they might be different from the covariances obtained between the same number of latents in the measurement model. 2009, Stanley A. Mulaik, Linear Causal Modeling with Structural Equations, page 209
3. Anything that is latent.
   Even if latents may not be actually detectable in any given situation, they may nevertheless be present in it. Latents may become actual if proper triggering conditions are in place, or they may be lost in the process. 2011, Javier Cumpa, Erwin Tegtmeier, Ontological Categories, page 158
   After we discovered Leah and I realized what she was, the flood gates opened. More and more latents have been discovered, as well as cubs. 2016, Christa Wick, Alpha Curves: A BBW Shapeshifter Romance