Dormancy
Etymology
From "dormant," which came through Old French dormir from Latin dormire, "to sleep." The metaphor is straightforward: the thing is asleep rather than dead. Biology adopted it for organisms that suspend activity to survive lean seasons, and general usage kept the promise of eventual waking.
noun · /DOR-mun-see/
A state of temporary inactivity in which something is alive or intact but not currently working.
What it names
The paused, sleeping condition of something that has not ended but is waiting — a seed, an account, a volcano, a project — capable of reactivating when conditions change.
Example
The startup idea lay in dormancy for three years until a change in the law suddenly made it viable.
Related idea
Latency stresses that something is present but hidden and ready to surface; dormancy stresses that an active thing has paused and can resume — a dormant volcano still exists as a volcano, merely asleep.