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Glite Dictionary
😴 Lack of action ⚖️ Resistance to movement
inertia

inertia

12 6.4
The way an object stays still or keeps moving unless something pushes it
  • noun
  • /ɪˈnɜrʃə/
  • Specialized
translation icon : inercia
  • The performance lasted a few more minutes out of sheer inertia before the public fled.
  • moment of inertia
  • polar moment of inertia
  • rotational inertia

I can figure out what the moment of inertia I is.

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Examples

  • A heavy object has a lot of inertia, making it difficult to move without applying a force.

  • The latter also contributes to the inertia of the moving body.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Mass is best understood as the inertia of an object.

    The Royal Institution

  • This will increase my moment of inertia, so I will spin... faster.

    Ice Princess (2005)

  • Let us think about the moment of inertia of a coin or a disk.

  • The wind speed drops and the car moves by inertia with deceleration for a while.

  • Paradoxically, I also noticed that, besides accelerating change, inertia plays an important role.

    Academic text (2012)

  • Accelerating the transition to a sustainable future means overcoming the inertia of both individuals and institutions.

    Academic text (2002)

  • It has incredible inertia.

    Flubber (1997)

  • The car's inertia kept it rolling even after the driver removed his foot from the accelerator.

Compounds

moment of inertia
  • Specialized
1 7.8

A number showing how hard it is to change an object's spin based on how its mass is spread

How Resistant

inertia
  • Specialized
12 6.4
stability
363 3.1
conatus
  • Archaic
9.9
momentum
198 4.1
instability
114 5.1

Surface Forms

inertia singular
inertias plural

Morphology

inertia = inert (semi-transparent) = inert + ia

Formed from the adjective 'inert' plus the noun-forming element '-ia'; the relation is clear but the suffix is not a productive, familiar English pattern and the sense is a technical physical property.

Etymology

Inertia comes from Latin parts in- 'not' and ars 'skill', the same root as art and the English word inert. So in physics inertia is the idea that things 'stay the same'. They stay at rest or keep moving unless something pushes them.