From William Hazlitt's essay *On the Ignorance of the Learned* (1821). Select the word that fits the blank. "The faculties of the mind, when not exerted, or when cramped by custom and authority, become listless, ______, and unfit for the purposes of thought or action."

Hazlitt is listing what *unused* mental faculties *become*: listless, ______, and unfit. The blank must continue the description of mental sluggishness. *Torpid* — numb, sluggish, in a state of suspended activity — is the precise word. (The noun *torpor* survives in modern English; the adjective *torpid* is the GRE-flavor version.) - "Nimble," "inquisitive," and "ardent" all describe **active** minds. Each is the *opposite* of what unused faculties become. *Torpid* derives from Latin *torpere*, to be numb. A *torpid* animal in winter has the same kind of suspended animation as a *torpid* mind in disuse. This pairing of biological and intellectual senses is part of why GRE prizes the word.