Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A slothful person; an idler.
  • adjective Lazy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person habitually lazy, idle, and slow; a drone.
  • Sluggish; lazy; characteristic of a sluggard.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Sluggish; lazy.
  • noun A person habitually lazy, idle, and inactive; a drone.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who is lazy, stupid, or idle by habit.
  • noun A person slow to begin necessary work, a slothful person.
  • noun A fearful or cowardly person, a poltroon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an idle slothful person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sluggart, probably from sluggi, lazy, probably of Scandinavian origin.]

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Examples

  • The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingians did, end in monkish retirement or shameful inactivity even the last of them, and the only one termed sluggard, Louis V., was getting ready, when he died, for an expedition in Spain against the Saracens.

    A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1 1830

  • Thus the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason, Prov. xxvi.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John) 1721

  • The sluggard is so because he does not consider; nor shall we ever learn to any purpose, either by the word or the works of God, unless we set ourselves to consider.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721

  • 16 The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721

  • This official was called a sluggard-waker, and was usually our old friend the parish clerk with a new title.

    The Parish Clerk 1892

  • Then for two hundred and fifty years France was under the Merovingian kings, and throughout much of this period there was very little settled government, Neustria, together with the rest of France, suffering from the lawlessness that prevailed under these "sluggard" kings.

    Normandy, Illustrated, Part 3 Gordon Home 1923

  • Then for two hundred and fifty years France was under the Merovingian kings, and throughout much of this period there was very little settled government, Neustria, together with the rest of France, suffering from the lawlessness that prevailed under these "sluggard" kings.

    Normandy, Illustrated, Complete Gordon Home 1923

  • It was like the 'sluggard's garden,' where 'the thorn and the thistle grow higher and higher.'

    Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine Edward Harrison Barker 1885

  • Proverbs 6: 6-11 challenges the "sluggard" to "consider the ant" and imitate her habit of working diligently to lay up for the future.

    SharperIron 2010

  • Milton Levine 1913-2011 Milton Levine liked to give his customers advice from the Bible: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise."

    He Hit Pay Dirt Popularizing the Toy Ant Farm Stephen Miller 2011

Comments

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  • 'T is the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain, “You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again.�? 1737 WATTS: The Sluggard.

    February 27, 2008

  • "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

    Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

    Provideth her provisions in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

    How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?"

    - Proverbs 6, Webster's Bible Translation.

    November 8, 2008