[a. L. torpor, -ōrem, f. torpēre to be numb.] Torpid condition or quality; torpidity. a. Absence or suspension of motive power, activity, or feeling; † inertia (obs.); suspended animation or development; in Path. morbid inertia or insensibility, stupor.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 763. Motion doth discusse the Torpour of Solide Bodies Which … have in them a Natural Appetite, not to move at all.
1681. trans. Willis’ Rem. Med., Wks., Vocab., Torpor, a numness, heaviness,… and unaptness for any motion.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. v. 443. Strictly speaking…, these animals cannot be said to sleep during the winter; it may be called rather a torpor, a stagnation of all the faculties.
a. 1854. H. Reed, Lect. Brit. Poets, ii. (1857), 63. Why does the earth break forth from its winter’s torpor in all the luxuriance of Spring?
b. transf. Intellectual or spiritual lethargy; apathy, listlessness; dullness; indifference.
[a. 1225. Ancr. R., 202. Þe Bore of heui Slouhðe haueð þeos hweolpes: Torpor is þe uorme þet is wlech heorte … þe oðer is Pusillinimitas.]
1607. Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr., I. i. 38. What meaneth our torpor? what our frozen coldnesse in zeal?
1789. Belsham, Ess., I. xvii. 333. A universal torpor of the mental faculties must take place.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th C., I. i. 62. That intellectual torpor which we are accustomed to associate with ecclesiastical domination.
c. Comb., as torpor-shedding adj.
1806. J. Grahame, Birds Scot., etc. 140. Till noon-tide pour the torpor-shedding ray.
