from javadoc NEW A thread that has not yet started is in this state. RUNNABLE A thread executing in the Java virtual machine is in this state. BLOCKED A thread that is blocked waiting for a monitor lock is in this state. WAITING A thread that is waiting indefinitely for another thread to perform a particular action is in this state. TIMED_WAITING A thread that is waiting for another thread to perform an action for up to a specified waiting time is in this state. TERMINATED A thread that has exited is in this state.