[syn: reaction time, response time, latency, latent period]
3.  the state of being not yet evident or active; 
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Latency \La"ten*cy\, n. [See Latent.]
   1. The state or quality of being latent.
      [1913 Webster]
            To simplify the discussion, I shall distinguish
            three degrees of this latency.        --Sir W.
                                                  Hamilton.
      [1913 Webster]
   2. The time between a stimulus the appearance of the
      response; the time between any causal action and the first
      appearance of the effect. Called also latent period.
      [PJC]
   3. Hence: (Med.) The time between exposure to a carcinogen or
      other disease-causing agent and the appearance of the
      consequent disease.
      [PJC]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
latency
    n 1: (computer science) the time it takes for a specific block
         of data on a data track to rotate around to the read/write
         head [syn: rotational latency, latency]
    2: the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response to
       it [syn: reaction time, response time, latency, latent
       period]
    3: the state of being not yet evident or active
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
37 Moby Thesaurus words for "latency":
   abeyance, apathy, catalepsy, catatonia, cold storage, deadliness,
   deathliness, delitescence, doldrums, dormancy, entropy,
   indifference, indolence, inertia, inertness, intermission,
   interruption, languor, latent content, latent meaningfulness,
   latentness, lotus-eating, passiveness, passivity, possibility,
   potentiality, quiescence, quiescency, stagnancy, stagnation,
   stasis, suspense, suspension, torpor, vegetation, virtuality,
   vis inertiae
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
latency
    1. The time it takes for a packet to cross
   a network connection, from sender to receiver.
   2. The period of time that a frame is held by a network device
   before it is forwarded.
   Two of the most important parameters of a communications
   channel are its latency, which should be low, and its
   bandwidth, which should be high.  Latency is particularly
   important for a synchronous protocol where each packet
   must be acknowledged before the next can be transmitted.
   (2000-02-27)