What's the difference between idle and inactive?

Idle


Definition:

  • (superl.) Of no account; useless; vain; trifling; unprofitable; thoughtless; silly; barren.
  • (superl.) Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours.
  • (superl.) Not employed; unoccupied with business; inactive; doing nothing; as, idle workmen.
  • (superl.) Given rest and ease; averse to labor or employment; lazy; slothful; as, an idle fellow.
  • (superl.) Light-headed; foolish.
  • (v. i.) To lose or spend time in inaction, or without being employed in business.
  • (v. t.) To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume; -- often followed by away; as, to idle away an hour a day.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even with hepatic lipase, phospholipid hydrolysis could not deplete VLDL and IDL of sufficient phospholipid molecules to account for the loss of surface phospholipid that accompanies triacylglycerol hydrolysis and decreasing core volume as LDL is formed (or for conversion of HDL2 to HDL3).
  • (2) Eager to show I was a good student, the next time we had sex, I noticed that one of my hands was, indeed, lying idle – and started to pat him on the back, absently, as if trying to wind a baby.
  • (3) And imagine he then found that, far from acting swiftly to capture, arrest and charge him, the Metropolitan police force (who knew something about his activities) initially stood idly by as his list of victims grew and grew.
  • (4) The balance is fragile and the threat of a spiral of decline is not an idle one.
  • (5) The KBS hypothesis of autism is not simply an idle exercise.
  • (6) "There are idle MPs with no outside interests and there are fantastic public servants that do have them."
  • (7) On Saturday an idle digg ing machine signalled the hasty clearing of the building site to make way for the refugees, who have fled from countries including Syria and Eritrea .
  • (8) In circumstances in which energy conversion rate and supplies of reducing power exceed the capacity of the biosynthetic machinery, energy-dependent H2 production presumably represents a regulatory device that facilitates "energy-idling."
  • (9) Relative to EM, Meritec had the highest specificity (97%), followed by Virogen (95%), IDL (91%), Pathfinder (85%), Behring (81%), Bartels (72%), and Rotazyme (71%).
  • (10) Thus, introducing fish oil into an atherogenic diet reduced the number of VLDL, IDL and LDL particles in plasma by as much as 50%, reduced the cholesteryl ester content of the circulating lipoprotein, and reduced the ability of the VLDL to stimulate cholesterol esterification in macrophages.
  • (11) 12.44am BST Ah, here's @NotCoachTito, sitting somewhere idly wondering what it's like in Fenway tonight...actually, he may have a decent idea of the atmosphere.
  • (12) It was on the set of The Frost Report that production staff began to refer to Barker and Corbett as "the two Ronnies", while the writing team included Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, and Eric Idle – every Monty Python member bar Terry Gilliam – as well as Marty Feldman and lead writer Antony Jay, who went on to create Yes, Minister.
  • (13) Moreover, a larger fraction of plasma VLDL is transformed into IDL and LDL, the latter representing the main plasma cholesterol carrier.
  • (14) Hagere Selam remains a modest place of mudwalled shops with corrugated roofs, cows, donkeys and sheep wandering unpaved streets and children idling away an afternoon at table football – a generation with no memory of the famine that killed hundreds of thousands and woke up the world.
  • (15) Epidemiological studies in humans suggest that IDL or remnant lipoproteins are predictors of the severity or progression of atherosclerosis.
  • (16) It would be idle to pretend that Cameron doesn't have talents as a leader.
  • (17) A chlorine sanitizer was circulated (5 min, 40 degrees C) and the unit containing sanitizing solution left idle overnight.
  • (18) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Either way, I love Jane for idly sticking two fingers up at the idea of a spa break in Rhodes or other emblems of “sophistication” being the only thing to aspire to.
  • (19) Bidders have spent an estimated £1m each on their bids but, according to one industry source, the process has stalled and franchise owners are being forced to retain expensive but idle bidding teams.
  • (20) The results indicate that a simple depletion of his-tRNA is not sufficient to elicit the response and suggest that idle ribosomes are required for regulation.

Inactive


Definition:

  • (a.) Not active; having no power to move; that does not or can not produce results; inert; as, matter is, of itself, inactive.
  • (a.) Not disposed to action or effort; not diligent or industrious; not busy; idle; as, an inactive officer.
  • (a.) Not active; inert; esp., not exhibiting any action or activity on polarized light; optically neutral; -- said of isomeric forms of certain substances, in distinction from other forms which are optically active; as, racemic acid is an inactive tartaric acid.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Excretion of inactive kallikrein again correlated with urine flow rate but the regression relationship between the two variables was different for water-load-induced and frusemide-induced diuresis.
  • (2) This suggested that some of the cell population became metabolically inactive at a very early stage, possibly owing to suboptimal conditions of growth.Glycine, lysozyme and lithium chloride initiated lysis of BCG growth in the aforementioned media 24-48 hours after inoculation.
  • (3) No evidence was found of reactivation of the inactive (paternal) allele or inactivation of both maternal and paternal alleles.
  • (4) The IgM antibody was found at high titers in each of 70 patients with inflammatory liver disease and at a low titer in one of six patients with inactive cirrhosis; it was not found in eight carriers with normal liver histology.
  • (5) To this purpose, the formation of DHT has been measured in rat glial cell cultures after different time of exposure to TPA, 4 alpha-Ph, an active and an inactive phorbol ester respectively, and 8-Br-cAMP.
  • (6) Insulin incubation of plasma membranes pretreated with protease inhibitors (leupeptin, phenylmethylsulfonylfluoride) or with exogenous trypsin, but not chymotrypsin substrates (esters of arginine and tyrosine) yields an inactive supernatant on PDH.
  • (7) Using the asynchronously replicating (hence genetically inactive) X chromosome as a marker, we obtained evidence showing that most or all of these tumors were monoclonal in origin.
  • (8) Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), the primary physiological inhibitor of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) in plasma, is a serine proteinase inhibitor (serpin) that forms a 1:1 stoichiometric complex with its target proteinase leading to the formation of a stable inactive complex.
  • (9) Possible explanations of the clinical gains include 1) psychological encouragement, 2) improvements of mechanical efficiency, 3) restoration of cardiovascular fitness, thus breaking a vicous circle of dyspnoea, inactivity and worsening dyspnoea, 4) strengthening of the body musculature, thus reducing the proportion of anaerobic work, 5) biochemical adaptations reducing glycolysis in the active tissues, and 6) indirect responses to such factors as group support, with advice on smoking habits, breathing patterns and bronchial hygiene.
  • (10) Thus, progesterone appears to be a relatively inactive ligand with high affinity for the 20 beta-S receptor.
  • (11) The subscales Depression, Inactivity and Physical Impairment could not be identified as a factor.
  • (12) LM-fragment-8 competes for this binding to the same extent as unlabelled LM (75%), while fragment PI is inactive and fibronectin (FN) competes by about 30% only.
  • (13) Cell culture experiments showed that CA III induced a 2- to 11-fold increase in [14C]HA synthesis by human synovial fibroblasts (SF) in a dose-dependent manner (P less than 0.001); erythrocyte CA I and CA II were inactive.
  • (14) Polypeptides of egg-borne Sendai virus (egg Sendai), which is biologically active on the basis of criteria of the infectivity for L cells and of hemolytic and cell fusion activities, were compared by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with those of L cell-borne (L Sendai) and HeLa cell-borne Sendai (HeLa Sendai) viruses, which are judged biologically inactive by the above criteria.
  • (15) Total and Cu,Zn-SOD activities significantly decreased and Mn-SOD activities significantly increased in both the active (with increased ALT levels) and the inactive phases (with normal ALT levels) for 36 children with chronic persistent hepatitis (CPH).
  • (16) Various forms of inactive data storage and archiving in machine-readable form are available to address this dilemma, yet these solutions can create even more difficult problems.
  • (17) Incubation of the enzyme-inhibitor complex with the sulfhydryl reagent caused dissociation into active ribonuclease and inactive inhibitor.
  • (18) Pipemidic acid and nalidixic acid showed only low activity or proved to be inactive.
  • (19) It is suggested that an enzyme-inhibitor complex of an acyl-enzyme type is formed that is slowly hydrolysed, with water as the final acceptor, leaving an intact enzyme and an inactive form of the inhibitor.
  • (20) Plasma angiotensin II correlated with active renin but not with inactive renin, suggesting that the inactive renin does not produce angiotensin II in vivo.