Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A condition of balance among various forces; motionlessness.
  • noun Medicine Stoppage of the normal flow of a body substance, as of blood through an artery or of intestinal contents through the bowels.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In pathology: Same as stagnation.
  • noun In pathology, a stopping of the blood in some part of the circulation, as in a part of an inflamed area.
  • noun Pl. staseis or stases. In the Gr. Ch., one of the sections (regularly three) of a cathisma, or portion of the psalter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physiol.) A slackening or arrest of the blood current in the vessels, due not to a lessening of the heart's beat, but presumably to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls. It is one of the phenomena observed in the capillaries in inflammation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun 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.
  • noun Inactivity; a freezing, or state of motionlessness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an abnormal state in which the normal flow of a liquid (such as blood) is slowed or stopped
  • noun inactivity resulting from a static balance between opposing forces

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, stationariness; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin, from Ancient Greek στάσις.

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