[f. next: see -ANCY.] The state of lying concealed or hid; spec. in Phys. and Path. (see quots.). Of an animal: Hibernation.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xxi. 163. [The Cameleon] by reason of its latitancy in the winter will long subsist without a visible sustentation. Ibid., IV. xiii. 223. By this way Aristotle through all his books of Animals, distinguisheth their times of generation, latitancy, migration, sanity, and venation.
1701. Beverley, Apoc. Quest., 37. If we can find according to Prophecy there ought to be such a Latitancy, or Secrecy of the Papacy.
1888. Syd. Soc. Lex., Latitancy, A term expressive of the hypothesis that the ovum and the spermatozoa lie in wait for each other, as it were, after insemination.
1890. Billings, Nat. Med. Dict., Latitancy, the condition of lying in wait, of waiting for development under favorable circumstances.