Dormant means alive but inactive. A dormant volcano, dormant seeds, lie dormant.
A dormant volcano has not erupted in recorded history but could; an extinct one is finished — and the line between them is a judgement rather than a fact. Seeds lie dormant until conditions are right, sometimes for centuries. A dormant account is one with no activity, and banks may eventually pass the money to a central scheme. Note dormancy; and that dormant means sleeping, from the same Latin as dormitory.
1adjectivedormantAlive but inactive.
“Bears lie dormant in their dens through the long winter.”
2adjectiveunusedUnused, of an account.
“The bank closed her dormant account because nobody had used it for years.”
dormant is a state of inactivity.
Latin dormiens is the present participle of dormire, to sleep. Dormitory, dormouse and the French dormir come from the same sleeping.
Proto-Indo-European
*drem-
Latin
dormiēns
English, today
dormant
Built from
From Middle English -, from Old French -, from Latin dormiēns, present participle of dormiō (“to sleep”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA