Definitions

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

  • noun Habitual laziness; sloth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being indolent.
  • noun Freedom from pain, grief, care, or trouble.
  • noun Love of ease; indisposition to labor; avoidance of exertion of mind or body; idleness; laziness.
  • noun Synonyms Sloth, slothfulness, inertness, sluggishness. See idle.

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

  • noun obsolete Freedom from that which pains, or harasses, as toil, care, grief, etc.
  • noun The quality or condition of being indolent; inaction, or lack of exertion of body or mind, proceeding from love of ease or aversion to toil; habitual idleness; indisposition to labor; laziness; sloth; inactivity.

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

  • noun Habitual laziness or sloth.

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

  • noun inactivity resulting from a dislike of work

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested 1603, from French indolence, insensitivity to pain, from Latin indolentia, insensibility, from in- not + dolere to grieve. Sense of laziness, first attested 1710, is related to taking pains.

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Examples

  • Seated, without doing anything, the greater part of the day, in an armchair of red wood, he bitterly complained of what he called the indolence and ignorance of his countrymen.

    Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America 1851

  • Seated, without doing anything, the greater part of the day, in an armchair of red wood, he bitterly complained of what he called the indolence and ignorance of his countrymen.

    Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 Alexander von Humboldt 1814

  • A leader who engages in indolence “ought to blush with shame to claim a part in them [victories] for his own renown when he had contributed nothing to the task but his voice and his thinking – not even that, seeing that in tasks such as these the counsel and commands which bring men their glory are exclusively those which are given on the spot in the midst of the action.”

    An Emperor Should Die On His Feet « So Many Books 2005

  • For the word indolence, it merely says, "the quality or state of being indolent."

    Things found on the way to other things. 2007

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    12.03 M-mv 2003

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    12.03 M-mv 2003

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    11.03 M-mv 2003

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    11.03 M-mv 2003

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    Archive 2003-12-01 M-mv 2003

  • I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly [sic] feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. '

    The recommended daily allowance M-mv 2003

Comments

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  • "With an agile and intensely active brain few writers have combined a greater disposition to extreme bodily indolence"

    Source: The times Literary supplement

    January 22, 2018