STAGNATION Synonyms: 19 Similar and Opposite Words

stagnation

noun

as in recession

a lack of activity or development and especially economic development After years of economic stagnation, employment numbers began to rise.

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Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of stagnation Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found in September 2025 that the college wage premium remains, but has barely moved since 2000, while the San Francisco Fed attributed that stagnation primarily to less demand for those workers, in a working paper shortly afterward. —

Jake Angelo, Fortune, 4 Apr. 2026 The home here is a ramshackle London town house where a famed painter, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), is spending his final years in a haze of creative stagnation and lingering renown. —

Justin Chang, New Yorker, 3 Apr. 2026 Lewis portrays Curator as a frustrated employee pushing against institutional norms and stagnation, balancing exasperation and displaying a knack for physical comedy. —

Michelle F. Solomon, Miami Herald, 3 Apr. 2026 This fear of a kind of job-market stagnation, but no exact sense of what is happening on the ground. —

Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2026 See All Example Sentences for stagnation

Recent Examples of Synonyms for stagnation

Noun

The International Energy Agency calls this the largest energy crisis on record, warning developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America face severe economic hardship from soaring energy prices and potential recession.

— John Leicester, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2026
Frey adds that society’s resistance to automation tends to coincide with economic downturns, like during the Great Depression, or recessions in the 1960s.

— Lorena O’Neil, Rolling Stone, 16 Apr. 2026