The Latin word latente in translation means "hidden". Latin is used in medicine and law. Therefore, the terms “latent” tuberculosis, “...” diabetes, “...” hepatitis, “...” syphilis or “latent” crime are not surprising. This word can be found dozens of synonyms and phrases explaining its meaning - dormant, invisible, in potency, inaccessible to external observation and, finally, secret.
The modern meaning and application of the concept of "latency"
But if it is a "buzzword", then you can call him anything that has a place to be, but not observed explicitly. Hence, a latent
person is a person with a double bottom, leading a double life, having a second "I". You can say - a charlatan, but you can - a latent person.
Now this adjective is most often found in combination with the noun “homosexuality”. A latent homosexual is one who does not know or is not sure of having secret inclinations. Although with such "colorful" gay parades, what kind of "latent" will not be apparent.
A latent person is most often an unhappy person, and his double life may be forced by the surrounding circumstances, his own indecision, inability to change the conditions of existence, so to speak, the conflict between the individual and society. In the short story Latent Man, the hero perceived the hated reality as a dream, and a dream as a beautiful life.
As a matter of fact, a latent person is both a scout and partisan, anyone “abandoned behind enemy lines”.
The word "latent", the meaning of which at the moment absolutely replaces the word "secret" in a fashionable party, has come into everyday life recently, but has spread almost everywhere. With new times, new words come. Come and go. That is, they remain, but no longer occur at every step. For example, "creative." More recently, perhaps only the pig did not call this word. There too - "pathos" and "rudimentary."
Durability of fashion concepts
Probably, the concept of “latent personality” can be interpreted as “mysterious” or “unexplored”, but there is no way to study it. Then the "latent yeti" also has the right to be.
There is the term “latent intelligence”, which applies to a person who does not want to stand out from society. An intellectually latent person is a person who, either by effort of will, hides the presence of the mind, or does not suspect its presence.
The concept of “latent learning” is interpreted as a causal relationship between two indifferent stimuli that are not explicitly supported. All this is used to enhance the imagery of the language, often in the absence of their own imaginative thinking.
Fashion words
The meaning of the word "latent" is interpreted as something temporarily not observed, but which, under appropriate circumstances, will necessarily appear in the future. This is definitely a professional term. In physics, he characterizes specific processes, here there are concepts - “latent (latent) heat of fusion” and “latent heat of vaporization”.
But the "latent misanthrope" - the phrase that Chubais was called - sounds intriguing, cool and incomprehensible. And what is the advertisement - “A talented person, by definition, latent schizophrenic.” At the moment when the word becomes trendy, the nausea of ​​its use in speech exceeds all the limits of the permissible, its real meaning is lost and becomes truly latent.