sluggard
Americannoun
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word 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
Myrmecology sets Mystic Maeterlinck musing; he thinks the ant may be an example, not only to the sluggard, but to the whole race.
From Time Magazine Archive
Three hundred pure white swans, fat, sluggard, stupid, sacred to the Hindu God Brahma, have been carried immemorially as a heavy and increasing charge on the budget of Jammu & Kashmir, famed Indian dual realm.
From Time Magazine Archive
When I asked him why he rode so hotly on a holy quest he shouted, 'Don't keep me, I was a sluggard, and now I'm going fast for there's a lion in the way.'
From Tales from Tennyson by Bellew, Molly K.
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.
