latency

Meaning

Noun

• The state of being latent.
• A delay, a period between the initiation of something and the occurrence.
• The delay between a stimulus and the response it triggers in an organism.
• 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.

Related

Similar words

• hiddenness, invisibility
• lag
• delay

Origin

• latent + -cy