inaction

UK/ɪnˈækʃən/US/ɪnˈækʃən/

nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,495 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: inactions

Inaction is a failure to do anything at all. Government inaction, criticised for inaction, inaction is a choice.

It is treated as a decision rather than an absence, which is the whole force of the word — accusing somebody of inaction says they chose not to act. In law, liability for inaction requires a duty to act. Note act, and that the in- means not.

Definitions of inaction

1nouninactionA failure to do anything at all.B2+
“The government's inaction during the floods made people furious.”

inaction is a failure to act.

Where it comes from

French inaction is in-, not, plus action, from Latin agere, to do. Agent and agile come from the same doing.

French
inaction
English, today
inaction

From French inaction. Morphologically in + action.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

inaction in the wild

Secondly, within the same choice set, the bad actions are regarded as morally worse than the factually worse inactions.
Omission bias
Instead, they appeal to the priority of national interests or argue that a U.S. response would be futile and accelerate violence, as a justification for inaction.
A Problem from Hell
Climate inaction is the absence of climate action.
Climate action
EWF allows the writes to be discarded or committed to the original volume later (either directly or through inaction based on the configuration).
Enhanced Write Filter
The decline in numbers has been attributed to Pakistani government inaction in attempting to increase manpower exports.
Pakistanis in Libya

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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