latent

UK/ˈleɪ.tənt/US/ˈleɪ.tənt/

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,310 of 15,258neutral

Latent means present but not yet showing itself. Latent talent, a latent infection, latent demand.

It is not the same as potential: latent means already there and hidden, and potential means possible in the future. A latent fingerprint is invisible until it is developed, and latent tuberculosis is a live infection doing nothing yet.

Definitions of latent

1adjectivelatentPresent but not yet showing itself.C1
“The virus can remain latent in the body for years before any symptoms appear.”

latent is a state.

Where it comes from

Latin latens comes from latere, to lie hidden.

Proto-Indo-European
*leh₂-
Latin
latēns
Old French
latent
Middle English
latent
English, today
latent

Built from

lateō · Latin — lie hidden

From Middle English latent, latente, from Old French latent, from Latin latēns, present participle of lateō (“lie hidden”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

latent in the wild

An information retrieval technique using latent semantic structure was patented in 1988 by Scott Deerwester, Susan Dumais, George Furnas, Richard Harshman, Thomas Landauer, Karen Lochbaum and Lynn Streeter.
Latent semantic analysis
A latent viral infection is a type of persistent viral infection which is distinguished from a chronic viral infection.
Virus latency
In conservation biology, latent extinction risk is a measure of the potential for a species to become threatened.
Latent extinction risk
The latent TGF-beta binding proteins (LTBP) are a family of carrier proteins.
Latent TGF-beta binding protein

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

the lateō family

latent

latent — used about once every 4,394 pages · #9,310 · point at the bar for the others

← Vocabulary

latent

UK/ˈleɪ.tənt/US/ˈleɪ.tənt/

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,310 of 15,258neutral

Latent means present but not yet showing itself. Latent talent, a latent infection, latent demand.

Definitions of latent

1adjectivelatentPresent but not yet showing itself.C1
“The virus can remain latent in the body for years before any symptoms appear.”

latent is a state.

Where it comes from

Latin latens comes from latere, to lie hidden.

Proto-Indo-European
*leh₂-
Latin
latēns
Old French
latent
Middle English
latent
English, today
latent

Built from

lateō · Latin — lie hidden

From Middle English latent, latente, from Old French latent, from Latin latēns, present participle of lateō (“lie hidden”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

latent in the wild

An information retrieval technique using latent semantic structure was patented in 1988 by Scott Deerwester, Susan Dumais, George Furnas, Richard Harshman, Thomas Landauer, Karen Lochbaum and Lynn Streeter.
Latent semantic analysis
A latent viral infection is a type of persistent viral infection which is distinguished from a chronic viral infection.
Virus latency
In conservation biology, latent extinction risk is a measure of the potential for a species to become threatened.
Latent extinction risk
The latent TGF-beta binding proteins (LTBP) are a family of carrier proteins.
Latent TGF-beta binding protein

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

the lateō family

latent

latent — used about once every 4,394 pages · #9,310 · point at the bar for the others