h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My Physics teacher insists that inertia caused by friction is known as stiction,
this is such a bizare word I have difficulty believing him, especially as I've never been able to find it in any text book and have never met anyone whos heard the term
has anyone else heard "stiction" used before?

Yes but only during a college lecture (mechanics) about 20 years ago.
I have a feeling it was an unofficial term for the static friction between two objects, I assume just a contraction of the two words.

hmmm which kind of static do you mean?
static as in electricity or as in motionless?

As in motionless
In this case static as opposed to dynamic

The Merriam-Webster dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/) reckons it means 'the force required to cause one body in contact with another to begin to move', so static friction it is.

I'm not quite sure how they can prove it was first used in 1946, though.