Stasis Is Standing Still, Not Peace
Stasis is a state of no change. In ancient Greek the same word meant civil strife, because a city in stasis had stopped functioning.
Stasis is a state in which nothing changes. The Greek original carried a harder edge: *stasis* meant faction and civil strife, because a city split into factions had seized up. Thucydides used it for the collapse of Corcyra into civil war. The modern English sense keeps the standstill and drops the violence.
- A state of no change. *Negotiations reached stasis.*
- In medicine — stoppage of flow. *Venous stasis.*
- In fiction — a period without development. *The middle act is pure stasis.*
- Static — the related adjective. *A static market.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | stasis | Political stasis. |
| Plural | stases | Repeated stases. |
| Adjective | static | A static image. |
| Adjective | stationary | A stationary vehicle. |
| Greek | stasis | A standing, a faction. |
- The talks have been in stasis for months.Politics.
- Stasis in the leg veins raises the risk of clots.Medicine.
- Nothing moves; the story is in stasis.Criticism.
Stationary or stationery?
- Stationary — not moving, with an a
- Stationery — paper and pens, with an e
- The memory trick — stationEry has an E for envelope
- The link — stationers had fixed shops rather than moving stalls
- Both come from Latin *stare*, to stand
Greek *stasis*, a standing or a faction, from *histanai*, to stand. English took it as a medical term in the 1700s and generalised it later.
Why did stasis mean civil war in Greek?
Because a city divided into standing factions had stopped working as a city. The word covered both the division and the paralysis it caused.
Is stasis the same as stability?
No. Stability means holding steady in a healthy way; stasis implies being stuck.