word of the day: abeyance

The word of the day is abeyance:

Etymology:  < Anglo-Norman abeiaunce, abeyaunce (in en abeiaunce ) (of a legal right or title) the state of waiting for a claimant or owner (late 14th cent.; compare Old French abeance aspiration, desire, longing (late 13th cent.)) < Anglo-Norman abayer , abeier , abaier , Anglo-Norman and Old French abaer to gape (c1200 in Anglo-Norman), to open (the mouth) wide (c1220 in Anglo-Norman), to expect, to wait for (late 13th cent.), to wait impatiently (c1300) < a- a- prefix⁵ + Old French beer, baer (Middle French baer, Middle French, French béer, French bayer) to open (the mouth) wide (1121–35), (of a person) to gape (1173), to long for, desire (something) (c1190; compare Old Occitan badar, Catalan badar (14th cent.), Italian badare (1294)) < post-classical Latin badare to open the mouth wide, gape, of uncertain origin; perhaps ultimately imitative.
1. Law. Of a right or title: the position of waiting for or temporarily being without a claimant or owner. Also: a period of being without a claimant or owner.  

2. Temporary inactivity or disuse; suspension; latent condition. (OED)

"We surmise that our patient (like everybody) is stacked with an almost infinite number of 'dormant' memory-traces, some of which can be reactivated under special conditions, especially conditions of overwhelming excitement.  Such traces, we conceive - like the subcortical imprints of remote events far below the horizon of mental life - are indelibly etched in the nervous system, and may persist indefinitely in a state of abeyance, due either to a lack of excitation or to positive inhibition."

 - Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat