[f. L. stagnāt- ppl. stem of stagnāre to stagnate, to be overflowed, f. stagn-um pool: see -ATE3.]
1. intr. To be or become stagnant; to cease to flow, to stand without motion or current.
a. of water, air, etc.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 326. Motion keeps water from stagnating.
1681. J. Scott, Chr. Life, I. iii. § 1 (1684), 55. Their unexercised Reason will … like standing water, stagnate and gather mire.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, VI. 453. We past by a Fountain, that presently seems to stagnate into the Lake of Marathon.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1704), 88. The Air that stagnated in the Shaft.
1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 20. The water … stagnates and corrupts during those months in which the rains intermit.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 77. Wherever air stagnates long, it becomes unwholesome.
1805–6. Cary, Dante, Inf., IX. 111. Where Rhone stagnates on the plains of Arles.
a. 1845. Barham, Ingol. Leg., House-warming. The valley, where stagnates Fleet Ditch.
transf. 1783. Crabbe, Village, I. 271. Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes.
1866. Anne Isabella Thackeray, in Cornh. Mag., Aug., 137. The tea stagnating on a small table near the doorway.
b. of the blood or other liquids of the body.
a. 1687. Cotton, Anacreontick, Poems (1689), 83. I am fifty Winters old, Bloud then stagnates and grows cold.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), To Stagnate, to lie still after such a manner, to want a free Course, as the Blood does, when grown too thick.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 125. By stagnating in the bladder it [urine] becomes thicker.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., i. Nursing their revengeful passions just to keep their blood from stagnating.
1845. Budd, Dis. Liver, 281. When it … causes the bile to stagnate in it, by narrowing the cystic or the common duct.
1878. Bristowe, Th. & Pract. Med., 115. The blood tends to accumulate and to stagnate in the capillaries and veins.
2. fig. and in figurative context.
1709. Steele & Swift, Tatler, No. 68, ¶ 1. Without this Impulse to Fame and Reputation, our Industry would stagnate.
1756. Burke, Subl. & B., I. xix. Nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate.
1799. Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., Frenchm. T. (ed. 2), I. 312. The stream of life now seemed to stagnate.
1818. Byron, Juan, Ded. xv. Its very courage stagnates to a vice.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xxvii. 11. I envy not … The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth.
1866. G. Stephens, Runic Mon., I. 16. Dialects may stagnate for centuries, or may rapidly change, according to circumstances.
1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., viii. 517. The faith of the Church would have stagnated.
b. Of a person or people: To subside into a stagnant mode of existence.
1774. Nicholls, Lett., in Gray’s Wks. (1843), V. 175. I wish at my return very much to run down to you before I sit down to stagnate on the bank of my lake.
1838. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., Pref. (1846), I. 15. Better be hurried forward for a season on the wings of the tempest, than stagnate in a death-like calm.
1878. H. P. Liddon, in J. O. Johnston, Life & Lett., viii. (1904), 222. Mahommedanism condemns the races which it curses to stagnate in evil.
1911. Marett, Anthropol., iv. 120. The net result was that, despite a very fair environment, away from the desert regions of the interior, man [in Australia] on the whole stagnated.
c. nonce-uses. To be delayed in transit; to pass sluggishly along.
1787. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 255. I have sometimes suspected that my letters stagnate in the post-offices.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VII. xi. [The procession] slow; stagnating along, like a shoreless Lake, yet with a noise like Niagara, Like Babel and Bedlam.
3. trans. To cause to be or become stagnant.
1693. J. Edwards, Author. O. & N. Test., I. 134. Whence gushed out an Inundation of Water, that is here stagnated, and become a filthy Lake.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 89. 2/2. The Blood is in a Manner stagnated.
1745. P. Thomas, Jrnl. Anson’s Voy., 9. The Country being so very woody that the Air must needs be stagnated.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 3. We have neither bogs nor marshes to stagnate our waters.
1801. Southey, Lett. to Lieut. Southey, 28 March, in C. C. Southey, Life (1850), II. 130. The one river with its rush almost stagnates the other.
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 476. In which blood … remaining stagnated in its proper vessels, did not coagulate.
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 954. Cruel god, Desist! or my offended mistress’ nod Will stagnate all thy fountains.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 68. The power which these bodies have of stopping the transmission of heat depends on the air which is stagnated in their vacuities.
b. transf. and fig.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman, vii. (1840), I. 47. His credit, the life and blood of his trade, is stagnated.
1756. Washington, Lett., Writ. (1889), I. 331. I am so weak-handed here, that I could not, without stagnating the public works, spare a man to these people’s assistance.
1906. Daily Chron., 18 Oct., 4/7. There is a tendency for age to stagnate a man’s initiative, invention and energy.
4. To astonish, stagger. dial. and U.S.
1784. Belknap, Tour to White Mts. (1876), 16, note. The most romantic imagination here finds itself surprized and stagnated.
1829. Brockett, N. C. Gloss. (ed. 2), Stagnate, to astonish. ‘I’ll stagnate her wi’ my story.’
1864. J. C. Atkinson, Stanton Grange, 198. It was Bob’s turn to be stagnated now.
