Sedentary
adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 a sedentary person
"Endosomatic electrodermal activity (skin potential level and skin potential response) as an indirect indicator of sympathetic nervous system activity was measured in 35 sedentary male students and 22 trained athletes of two groups during resting and after an acute exercise. The aim of this study was to investigate the difference of skin potential parameters between sedentaries and trained athletes before and after the acute exercise in bicycle ergometer."
- 1 Not moving; relatively still; staying in the vicinity.
"The oyster is a sedentary mollusk; the barnacles are sedentary crustaceans."
- 2 Living in a fixed geographical location; the opposite of nomadic.
- 3 Not moving much; sitting around. usually
"[…]the Egyptians; whose Sages were not sedentary, scholastic Sophists, like the Grecian[…]"
- 4 inactive; motionless; sluggish; tranquil obsolete
"Such restless revolution day by day Repeated, while the sedentary earth That better might with far less compass move[…]"
- 5 Caused by long sitting. obsolete
"till length of years And sedentary numbness craze my limbs To a contemptible old age obscure."
- 1 requiring sitting or little activity wordnet
Example
More examples"Many people lead a sedentary life, which can lead to weight gain."
Etymology
From Middle French sédentaire, from Latin sedentārius (“sitting”), from sedeō (“I sit, I am seated”).
More for "sedentary"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.