DOLDRUMS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Doldrums

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/dˈoʊldrəmz/ Listen

Doldrums

noun

A state of inactivity (in business or art etc). Synonyms: stagnancy, stagnation.

A belt of calms and light winds between the northern and southern trade winds of the Atlantic and Pacific.

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Etymology of 'Doldrums'

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"Doldrums" Quotes from Famous Books

... my attachment to Miss Armstrong; possibly the pose I thought needful for holding this young lady's regard withal proved exhausting after a time. At all events, I remember neglecting her shamefully in equatorial latitudes, when the Ariadne was creeping along her zig-zag course through the Doldrums. For me this period, fascinating in scores of other ways, belongs to Nelly Fane, with her long black curls, biscuit-coloured legs and arms, and large, melting dark eyes. At the time the thought of being separated ...

— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... reached that narrow belt of the Atlantic, called "the doldrums," which lies between the variable and the trade winds. This tract is from two to three degrees in width, and is usually fallen in with soon after crossing the thirtieth degree of latitude. Here the wind is apt to be light ...

— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... DOLDRUMS. Those parts of the sea where calms are known to prevail. They exist between and on the polar sides of the trade-winds, but vary their position many degrees of latitude in the course of the year, depending upon the sun's declination. ...

— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... crowded even tenor of existence goes on, with its tidal ups and downs, too listlessly busy to demand expression. Then the shock of tempest comes, and it's only after we're driven out of them that we realize we've been drifting so long in the doldrums of life. Then it comes home to us that there are the Dark Ages in the history of a woman exactly as there were the Dark Ages in the history of Europe. Life goes on in those Dark Ages, but it doesn't feel the call to articulate itself, to leave a record ...

— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

Words linked to "Doldrums" : art, business enterprise, artistic creation, current of air, commercial enterprise, inactiveness, wind, business, artistic production, air current, inaction, inactivity