static

Etymology

Modern Latin staticus, from Ancient Greek στατικός (statikós), from ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to make stand”); surface analysis, stasis + -tic.

adj

1. Unchanging; that cannot or does not change.
   It's important to know that the Earth's crust is in no manner a stable and static place. 2012, Chinle Miller, In Mesozoic Lands: The Mesozoic Geology of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Kindle edition
2. Making no progress; stalled, without movement or advancement.
3. Immobile; fixed in place; having no motion.
   England were ponderous with ball in hand, their runners static when taking the ball and their lines obvious, while their front row struggled badly in the scrum. October 1, 2011, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport
4. (programming) Computed, created, or allocated before the program starts running, as opposed to at runtime.
   A further advantage of static type checking is of course computational efficiency, since run time checks are no longer necessary. 1980, R. Barbuti, A. Martelli, “Static Type Checking for Languages with Parametric Types and Polymorphic Procedures”, in Proceedings of the Fourth ‘Colloque Internationale sur la Programmation’
   A static variable is one whose storage remains allocated for the duration of the entire program. All global variables are static variables. 1998, Nell B. Dale, Chip Weems, Mark R. Headington, chapter 8, in Programming and Problem Solving with C++
   Despite the term, a static website doesn’t mean one that never changes. Static refers to the fact that the site’s assets—HTML files, graphics, and other downloadable content such as PDF files—are just static files sitting in an S3 bucket. 2019, Ben Piper, David Clinton, chapter 12, in AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Guide with Online Labs
5. (object-oriented programming) Defined for the class itself, as opposed to instances of it; thus shared between all instances and accessible even without an instance.

noun

1. (uncountable) Interference on a broadcast signal caused by atmospheric disturbances; heard as crackles on radio, or seen as random specks on television.
   The FCC says it decided to attempt standardization of VHF receivers after getting "thousands of complaints" from disgruntled boatmen who found their sets brought in mostly a lot of garble and static. 1976, Boating (volume 40, numbers 1-2, page 152)
   The girls don't seem to care tonight / As long as the mood is right / No static at all (no static, no static at all) / FM (no static at all) 1978, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen (lyrics and music), “FM (No Static at All)”, in FM (soundtrack), performed by Steely Dan
   Damaged Hologram: --alled Reapers. [static]... the Citadel... [static] ...overwhelmed... [static] ...only hope... [static]... Damaged Hologram: --[static] act of desperation... [static] ... the Conduit... [static] ... all is lost [static] Damaged Hologram: ...cannot be stopped... [static] ...cannot be stopped... [static] 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Ilos
2. (figurative, by extension, uncountable) Interference or obstruction from people.
3. (uncountable) Static electricity.
4. (countable) A static caravan.
5. (uncountable, slang, US) Verbal abuse.
   You want to start some static? 1984, Daniel Petrie Jr., Beverly Hills Cop, spoken by Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy), Paramount Pictures
   And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin' through the doors / They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whore 1998, “What It's Like”, performed by Everlast
6. (countable, programming) A static variable.
   Some compilers will allow statics to be inlined, but then incorrectly create multiple instances of the inlined variable at run-time. 2000, Dov Bulka, David Mayhew, Efficient C++: Performance Programming Techniques, page 149