Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word oblomovism.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • what is this?

    January 16, 2008

  • I think it refers to the quality of being too lazy to get out of bed in the morning, derived from an eponymous character in Russian fiction.

    January 16, 2008

  • Yup, that's it. Also used as a blanket term for hibernation and estivation in a paper on Oblomovism in the Mollusca.

    January 16, 2008

  • Great word. Signed, Too Lazy to Look It Up.

    January 16, 2008

  • "Thompson had been sinking towards semi-starvation, I to the insidious Oblomovism of the country. Now we were reformed and happy."

    'The Sailor', page 71 in "Essential Stories", by V. S. Pritchett.

    (Sir Victor writes as if taking dictation from the Muse herself)

    July 16, 2008

  • The Russian word itself is wonderful: Обломовщина - Oblomovshchina, with that peculiar Russian suffix -shchina, which means something like "the all-pervasive spirit/dominance of…"

    July 16, 2008

  • Oblomovism is not so much being lazy. It is more a feeling of comfort with your own existence so deep that even obviously necessary change becomes more trouble than it is worth.

    October 31, 2008

  • I think I've met cats who practised this.

    November 1, 2008

  • I think I've dated people who practiced this.

    November 1, 2008

  • Sometimes I practice this.

    November 1, 2008

  • See dysania. Though the subject's will is questionable in that case.

    July 29, 2009

  • According to the OED: "The name of a character in Ivan Goncharov's novel ‘Oblomov’ (1855), represented as inactive, weak-willed, and procrastinating: used allusively.

    Hence Oblomovism (ɒbˈləʊməʊvɪz(ə)m, ˈɒbləʊməvɪz(ə)m), conduct resembling that of Oblomov; sluggishness, inertia."

    ex. gr., 1957 A. G. Meyer Leninism ix. 214 Oblomovism—"the behavior of Oblomov, pathetic hero of Goncharov's novel of the same name, who prefers to contemplate and discuss the universe, including his own predicament, instead of taking an active part in solving his problems and participating in life.

    July 31, 2013