indolence

Definition

Habitual laziness or sloth.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French indolence, or from its etymon Latin indolentia (“freedom from pain; insensibility”), from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + dolēns (“hurting, suffering; grieving, lamenting”) + -ia (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Dolēns is the present participle of doleō (“to hurt, suffer; to be sorry, deplore, grieve for, lament”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *delh₁- (“to divide, split”).

Example Sentences

• "After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. […] This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have passed many hours with much indolence, though not with great pleasure. Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: […]"
• "The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic."
• "He [Samuel Johnson] ſeemed to learn by intuition; for though indolence and procraſtination vvere inherent in his conſtitution, vvhenever he made an exertion he did more than any one elſe."

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