Other forms: statuses
Somebody's status is their rank or standing among other people. Social status, high status, status symbol.
It is a central term in sociology and a common one in ordinary speech. The second sense is the current state of something: marital status, the status of the application, check the status of your order. Status quo means the existing state of affairs, usually with a suggestion that somebody wants to keep it. Note status symbol, an object owned mainly to show wealth or rank, and that the plural is statuses, not stati.
1nounstatusA person's rank or standing among others.
“Status mattered more in that office than pay did.”
2nouncurrentThe current state of something.
“The status of the application changed overnight.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
status is a standing or state.
Latin status meant standing or position, from stare, to stand — the same verb behind stable, station and statue. Somebody's status is literally where they stand, which is the metaphor the whole English vocabulary of rank is built on.
Proto-Indo-European
*steh₂-
Latin
status
English, today
status
A Latin status. A a doublet of state and estate. Displaced native Old English hād (“rank, status”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA