Latency or latent may refer to: Science and technology Latent heat, energy released or absorbed, by a body or a thermodynamic system, during a constant-temperature process Latent variable, a variable that is not directly observed but inferred in statistics Biology and medicine Latency period or latent period, the time between development of a disease or exposure to a pathogen, chemical, or radiation and when symptoms first become apparent (e.g. latent tumor) or when the disease becomes infectious (e.g. infectious disease) Latent homosexuality, a term proposed by Sigmund Freud Sleep onset latency, the time it takes a person to fall asleep Virus latency, the ability of a virus to remain dormant Engineering Latency (engineering), a measure of the time delay experienced by a system Latency (audio), the delay necessitated by the conversion between analog and digital representations of sound data CAS latency, computer memory latency Network latency or network delay, a measure of the time delay required for information to travel across a network Rotational latency, the delay waiting for the rotation of the disk to bring the required disk sector under the read-write head Mechanical latency Other uses Latency stage, a term coined by Sigmund Freud for a stage in a child's psychosexual development Latent Recordings, an independent Canadian record label Nuclear latency, the condition of a country capable of developing nuclear weapons but not yet possessing them