inactive applies to anyone or anything not in action or in operation or at work.
on inactive status as an astronaut
inactive accounts
idle applies to persons that are not busy or occupied or to their powers or their implements.
workers were idle in the fields
inert as applied to things implies powerlessness to move or to affect other things; as applied to persons it suggests an inherent or habitual indisposition to activity.
inert ingredients in drugs
an inert citizenry
passive implies immobility or lack of normally expected response to an external force or influence and often suggests deliberate submissiveness or self-control.
passive resistance
supine applies only to persons and commonly implies abjectness or indolence.
a supine willingness to play the fool
Example Sentences
an inert and lifeless body How does he propose to stimulate the inert economy and create jobs?
Recent Examples on the WebWell, this particular black hole is almost inert, in a sense. Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 19 July 2022 The purity is worth noting because the mass production of colloidal silver can render the key ingredient inert and unstable. Ahmed Zambarakji, Robb Report, 21 June 2022 And yet, the movie would be inert without a strong supporting cast. Jacob Siegal, BGR, 13 June 2022 Studies have shown that fat cells aren’t inert, but very metabolically active. Alice Park, Time, 3 June 2022 With another movie night out of the question, and the Tesla’s techy features rendered inert, the forest around me came into focus. Maren Larsen, Outside Online, 18 Aug. 2020 Connecticut, the Uvalde massacre has prompted the seemingly inert Senate into negotiations over the shape of potential reforms. David Faris, The Week, 2 June 2022 And its clumsy, inert storytelling seems less interested in converting nonbelievers than in convincing us of Wahlberg’s piety.Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2022 This could have mitigated the political volatility of border crossings, therefore rendering inert Lukashenko’s alleged weapons of ‘hybrid warfare’. Frey Lindsay, Forbes, 28 Jan. 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
Latin inert-, iners unskilled, idle, from in- + art-, ars skill — more at arm