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Sick and Tired: The Literal and Figurative Meanings of Lassitude
Lassitude and weariness make an interesting pair. As with many nearly synonymous pairs of words in English, one is derived from Latin and the other from Old English. Even though they both mean “the condition of being tired,” they are used in different ways. Following a common pattern, the Latinate word tends to be used in technical, medical, and formal writing, and the Old English-derived word is used when referring to physical, emotional, and spiritual qualities.
Lassitude comes from the Latin word lassus, meaning “weary.” Our English spelling comes from the French word that developed directly from Latin, borrowed in the 15th century. In French, the word las (masculine) or lasse (feminine) means “weary” or “tired,” and the idiom être las de means “to be sick and tired of.” This led to another English word with the same root: alas, a word that expresses sadness or disappointment, but conveys some measure of fatigue and resignation as well.
Though it sometimes is just a fancy word for fatigue in medical contexts, lassitude is also used in ways that are metaphorical and closer in meaning to “negligence”:
Congress was being choked by pettiness and lassitude.
The case was delayed because of sheer lassitude.
The failure was the result of moral lassitude.
Examples of weary in a Sentence
Paul Sorrell, Parabola, May 2000
But for the wilted weeds that managed to jut forth in wiry clumps where the mortar was cracked and washed away, the viaduct wall was barren of everything except the affirmation of a weary industrial city's prolonged and triumphant struggle to monumentalize its ugliness.
—Philip Roth, American Pastoral, 1997
Every day for a week Ellsworth showed up to see Clarence and every day Miss Eunice and Mr. George Edward would exchange weary glances and shrugs …
—Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, 1992
I need to rest my weary eyes.
The miners were weary after a long shift.
She was weary from years of housework.
Verb
What wearies me about Dickens, however, is his excessive use of words.
—Will Manley, Booklist, 1 Nov. 2006
I doubted what Indonesia now had to offer and wearied of being new all over again.
—Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father, (1995) 2004
Does it weary me to find some women of the next generation reinventing the wheel when it comes to planning their lives and dreaming of their romantic futures?
—Margo Jefferson, New York Times Book Review, 15 Apr. 2001
The work wearies me sometimes.
these constant complaints are really wearying me
Brian Truitt, USA Today, 26 Apr. 2025
The novel’s weary detective, Prudence Freeborne, is of course heading to her retirement party when the call comes through.
—Leo Robson, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025
Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 1 Apr. 2025
Amid all this morphing, what has stayed constant is that COVID has been, in one way or another, wearying in a bone-deep way.
—Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 7 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for weary
Cite this Entry
“Weary.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weary. Accessed 7 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
weary
1 of 2 adjective
weary
2 of 2 verb
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