inert
inactive or having no power to act
Roots
- art: skill, craft, or human making
- im- / in- (not): not or without
Other words with the art root
- art: skill, craft, or creative making
- artful: clever or skillful, sometimes crafty
- artifice: clever trickery or artificial craft
- artificial: made by humans; not natural
- artless: without guile; natural or naive
Inert is not-skilled turning into not-active: no inner force seems ready to move.
The proposal stayed inert until one concrete example gave it shape.
Inert has an odd but useful history. Art once means skill or craft; in- can mean without. The old sense was unskilled or inactive, and modern inert keeps the inactive side: no motion, no response, no force.