as in lazy
not easily aroused to action or work
his overly lax managerial style has resulted in a department that is slothful and unproductive
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Recent Examples of slothful
Soviet Russia, too, experienced periodic panics about slothful bureaucrats impeding the dictatorship of the proletariat.
—
Charlie Tyson, The New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2025
At our test track, the buzzy little SUV needed a slothful 9.2 seconds to hit 60 mph.
—Drew Dorian, Car and Driver, 23 Dec. 2022
Procrastination can be slothful or prudent, a vice or a virtue, depending on your habits and the tasks at hand.
—Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 16 Dec. 2021
Selfish, feckless, self-deluded, weak-willed yet childishly willful, manipulative, slothful, and mendacious: How can such a despicable character also be such a likable one?
—Sigrid Nunez, Harper's Magazine, 28 Sep. 2021
After releasing 12 albums in 13 months, Twin Cities guitarist Cory Wong will end his momentarily slothful ways and drop just his second album this year.
—Jon Bream, Star Tribune, 11 May 2021
At the same time, others construed even the most slothful forms of idleness as a bold resistance to modernity’s greatest ills.
—Ingrid Nelson, The Conversation, 19 Mar. 2021
The pilfered offspring return with the raiders to their nests, then hatch and grow up to become live-in slaves, tasked with the feeding and care of their slothful masters and their masters’ brood.
—Brendan Borrell, Discover Magazine, 10 Apr. 2013
Charlie Tyson, The New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2025
At our test track, the buzzy little SUV needed a slothful 9.2 seconds to hit 60 mph.
—Drew Dorian, Car and Driver, 23 Dec. 2022
Procrastination can be slothful or prudent, a vice or a virtue, depending on your habits and the tasks at hand.
—Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 16 Dec. 2021
Selfish, feckless, self-deluded, weak-willed yet childishly willful, manipulative, slothful, and mendacious: How can such a despicable character also be such a likable one?
—Sigrid Nunez, Harper's Magazine, 28 Sep. 2021
After releasing 12 albums in 13 months, Twin Cities guitarist Cory Wong will end his momentarily slothful ways and drop just his second album this year.
—Jon Bream, Star Tribune, 11 May 2021
At the same time, others construed even the most slothful forms of idleness as a bold resistance to modernity’s greatest ills.
—Ingrid Nelson, The Conversation, 19 Mar. 2021
The pilfered offspring return with the raiders to their nests, then hatch and grow up to become live-in slaves, tasked with the feeding and care of their slothful masters and their masters’ brood.
—Brendan Borrell, Discover Magazine, 10 Apr. 2013
Recent Examples of Synonyms for slothful
Adjective
-
White cast-iron chairs are perfectly positioned on a terrace to catch Stromboli’s volcanic smoke-show, and occasional fiery belch, in the distance over a lazy cocktail.—
Rosalyn Wikeley,
Condé Nast Traveler,
10 Jan. 2026
-
Suzy Welch, a best-selling author and professor of management practice at New York University, hit back against those who brand the young generation lazy by reminiscing on her career journey.—
Emma Burleigh,
Fortune,
9 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Dumas has worked for Valero for four years but just moved to the Benicia location from Arizona a year ago, just a few months before the energy company announced a possible plan to cease or idle operations.—
Amanda Hari,
CBS News,
8 Jan. 2026
-
One such power line, the century-old Mesa-Sylmar, owned by SoCal Edison, had been idle for some fifty years.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
8 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Slothful.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/slothful. Accessed 17 Jan. 2026.
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