sloth

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Aversion to work or exertion; laziness; indolence.
2. n. Any of various slow-moving, arboreal, edentate mammals of the family Bradypodidae of South and Central America, having long hooklike claws by which they hang upside down from tree branches and feeding on leaves, buds, and fruits, especially:
3. n. A member of the genus Bradypus, having three long-clawed toes on each forefoot. Also called ai¹, three-toed sloth.
4. n. A member of the genus Choloepus, having two toes on each forefoot. Also called two-toed sloth, unau.
5. n. A company of bears. See Synonyms at flock¹.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Slowness; tardiness.
2. n. Disinclination to action or labor; sluggishness; habitual indolence; laziness; idleness.
3. n. A company: said of bears.
4. n. A South American tardigrade edentate mammal of the family Bradypodidæ: so called from their slow and apparently awkward or clumsy movements. The slowness of their motions on the ground is the necessary consequence of their disproportioned structure, and particularly of the fact that the feet exhibit a conformation resembling that of clubfoot in man—a disposition of the carpal and tarsal joints highly useful in climbing. Sloths live on trees, and never remove from one until they have stripped it of every leaf. They are helpless when on the ground, and seem at home only on trees, suspended beneath the branches, along which they are sometimes observed to travel from tree to tree with considerable celerity. The female produces a single young one at a birth, which she carries about with her until it is able to climb. Sloths are confined to the wooded regions of tropical America, extending northward into Mexico. At least 12 species are described, but the true number is fewer. All have three toes on the hind feet, but some have only two on the fore feet, whence the obvious distinction of three-toed and two-toed sloths (a distinction even more strongly marked in the anatomy of these animals) warranted a division of the family into bradypods (Bradypodinæ) and cholopodines (Cholopodinæ). Most sloths belong to the former group, and these have the general name ai. The best-known of these is the collared three-toed sloth, Bradypus tridactylus or torquatus, with a sort of mane. The unau or two-toed sloth, Cholopus didactylus, inhabits Brazil; it is entirely covered with long coarse woolly hair. (See cut under Cholopus.) A second and quite distinct species of this genus, C. hoffmanni, inhabits Central America. (See Tardigrada, 1.) The name is apparently a translation of the Portuguese word preguiça (Latin pigritia), slowness, slothfulness. See the quotation.
5. n. One of the gigantic fossil gravigrade edentates, as a megatherium or mylodon. See cut under Mylodon.
6. n. Synonyms Indolence, inertness, torpor, lumpishness. See idle.
7. To be idle or slothful.
8. To delay.
9. n. A Middle English form of sleuth.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable Laziness; slowness in the mindset.
2. n. countable A herbivorous, arboreal South American mammal of the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae, noted for its slowness and inactivity.
3. n. rare A collective term for a group of bears.
4. v. obsolete, intransitive To be idle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Slowness; tardiness.
2. n. Disinclination to action or labor; sluggishness; laziness; idleness.
3. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of arboreal edentates constituting the family Bradypodidæ, and the suborder Tardigrada. They have long exserted limbs and long prehensile claws. Both jaws are furnished with teeth (see Illust. of Edentata), and the ears and tail are rudimentary. They inhabit South and Central America and Mexico.
4. v. obsolete To be idle.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a disinclination to work or exert yourself
2. n. any of several slow-moving arboreal mammals of South America and Central America; they hang from branches back downward and feed on leaves and fruits
3. n. apathy and inactivity in the practice of virtue (personified as one of the deadly sins)