stasis

Etymology

From New Latin stasis, from Ancient Greek στάσις (stásis). See the doublet stead.

noun

1. (pathology) A slackening or arrest of the blood current, due not to a lessening of the heart’s beat, but to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls.
2. (figurative) Inactivity; a freezing, or state of motionlessness.
   His company was sized for growth, not stasis.
   Or will Americans remain hunkered forever—as confused and anxious and paralyzed as we were before 2020—descend into digital feudalism, and retreat back into our cocoons of nostalgia and cultural stasis, providing the illusion that nothing much is changing or ever can change? 2020-08-07, Kurt Andersen, “College-Educated Professionals Are Capitalism’s Useful Idiots”, in The Atlantic
3. (science fiction) A technology allowing something to be artificially frozen in time, so that it does not age or change.
4. One of the sections of a cathisma or portion of the psalter.