the.com/doldrums
the ocean's dead air where wind goes to die and sailors follow.
means a belt near the equator with weak, flukey winds that can becalm ships, or by extension any stretch of listless stagnation.
from from an old english word dold meaning stupid or dull, sailors in the 1800s named the windless equatorial zone after the feeling it induced, then the word drifted ashore to mean any funk.
real locationroughly 5 degrees north and south of equator
proper namemeteorologists call it the intertropical convergence zone
trade winds collidehot air rises there instead of blowing sideways
for instance
the bounty mutiny 1789 — weeks becalmed near the doldrums frayed nerves before the mutiny
joshua slocum log — first solo circumnavigator cursed the calms in his 1900 memoir
phantom tollbooth doldrums — 1961 children's book turned the zone into a literal land of boredom