[f. next: see -ANCY.] The state of lying concealed or hid; spec. in Phys. and Path. (see quots.). Of an animal: Hibernation.

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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.

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1701.  Beverley, Apoc. Quest., 37. If we can find according to Prophecy there ought to be such a Latitancy, or Secrecy of the Papacy.

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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.

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1890.  Billings, Nat. Med. Dict., Latitancy, the condition of lying in wait, of waiting for development under favorable circumstances.

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