sluggard
Americannoun
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of sluggard
First recorded in 1350–1400, sluggard is from the Middle English word slogarde. See slug 1, -ard
Explanation
Do you know anyone lazy or slothful? Then you know a sluggard: an idle or sluggish person. If you know that sluggish means slow-moving, then you have a clue to the meaning of sluggard. A sluggard is a lazy, sleepy, slow-moving person. A sluggard is likely to oversleep and even snooze through class or work. If you're alert and hard-working, no one will ever call you a sluggard or a slug. Being a sluggard is a great way to fail a class, lose a job, or just fall behind in general.
Vocabulary lists containing sluggard
Oedipus the King
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 3
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With television’s new proximity to the more puritanical uses of our devices, the archetype of the beached sluggard on the couch has been smuggled into a portrait of diligence.
From The New Yorker • Jul. 6, 2016
I've never been a sluggard, and yet I've never felt that I've done one twentieth of what I was capable of doing.
From The Guardian • Jun. 14, 2013
No sluggard, Herr Hitler had written his great Purge Speech, as Germans called it, entirely alone last week, shutting himself off from friends and advisers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sometimes it finds that a sluggard or incompetent has got his just deserts.
From Time Magazine Archive
But stay, gentle reader! hast thou not heard that Thomson was himself a very sluggard, and loved his warm bed far better than any sylvan scene he could so well describe?
From Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume I (of 2) A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day by Anonymous
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
