as in slug
a lazy person
tried to wake up the sluggards who were still sleeping at that late hour
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in slothful
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Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of sluggard
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 19 July 2019
Clearly, supervision at your job is lax, and your sluggard classmate is taking advantage of that.
—Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017
Slug was – is – a variant on sluggard, which was actually used as a surname for some time, apparently.
—Ruth Walker, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 Sep. 2017
French workers, whom the British like to dismiss as holiday-hogging sluggards, are more productive than the British.
—The Economist, 31 Aug. 2017
Moneyshow, Forbes, 5 Mar. 2021
Noun
Scar then proceeds to desolate the kingdom, with the help of hyenas, while Simba, in exile, grows up to become a pleasure-hunting, grub-eating sluggard.
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 19 July 2019
Clearly, supervision at your job is lax, and your sluggard classmate is taking advantage of that.
—Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017
Slug was – is – a variant on sluggard, which was actually used as a surname for some time, apparently.
—Ruth Walker, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 Sep. 2017
French workers, whom the British like to dismiss as holiday-hogging sluggards, are more productive than the British.
—The Economist, 31 Aug. 2017
Adjective
The stock really has not done much of anything in the last five years, the stock following a similar sluggard pattern of the company’s revenue line.
—Moneyshow, Forbes, 5 Mar. 2021
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sluggard
Noun
-
The gap under the back door meant the kitchen had an Arctic climate in the winter and a slug infestation all year round.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Nov. 2025
-
Although pumpkins that have started to turn color can ripen off the vine, leaving them in the garden exposes them to slugs, rot, or damage from a hard freeze.—
Andy Wilcox,
Better Homes & Gardens,
9 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
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
Noun
-
This will reduce the number of snails and other pests that overwinter nearby and feed on your plants in spring.—
Brandee Gruener,
Southern Living,
31 Oct. 2025
-
Sturdy cloches can keep slugs, snails, and many other pests from feeding on veggies, herbs, and flowers.—
Lauren Landers,
Better Homes & Gardens,
28 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Saturday morning appeared more like a lazy weekday morning at SMF — plenty of curbside pickup spaces and ticketing agents offering extra attention — than the frontline of a nationwide transportation crunch.—
Cathie Anderson,
Sacbee.com,
8 Nov. 2025
-
It’s made with a soft, cozy knit, but the sleek silhouette keeps it from veering into lazy-day territory.—
Chaise Sanders,
Travel + Leisure,
8 Nov. 2025
Noun
-
The special prosecutor’s team has accused Yoon and his military commanders of ordering a covert drone operation into the North to inflame tensions between the neighbors and justify his martial law decree.—
Reuters 2 hr ago,
CNN Money,
10 Nov. 2025
-
Those instruments stayed grounded during Melissa, while other instruments and drones collecting forecast information were deployed.—
Dinah Voyles Pulver,
USA Today,
9 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
Sixty-five-year-old Jep Gambardella, indolent and disenchanted, his eyes permanently imbued with gin and tonic, watches this parade of hollow, doomed, powerful yet depressed humanity.—
Leo Barraclough,
Variety,
4 Aug. 2025
-
Her tumor appears ominous but is, by nature, indolent—slow-growing, noninvasive, never destined to threaten her life.—
Siddhartha Mukherjee,
New Yorker,
16 June 2025
Noun
-
His discoveries promise to upset the gaming tables of every school of thought that wagers on new and untested art for idlers’ rewards: the love of novelty, the will to make or unmake reputations, the wish to be hip or au courant.—
Mark Greif,
Harper's Magazine,
26 July 2024
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Their name exudes the essence of an idler and slacker, but women’s loafers themselves are quite the opposite.—
Gaby Keiderling,
Harper's BAZAAR,
19 Jan. 2023
Adjective
-
Why didn’t Tania just get one of her fellow Council wokesters to hire her shiftless, entitled kin?—
Howie Carr,
Boston Herald,
28 Sep. 2025
-
The film, like How to Train Your Dragon, is about a shiftless youngster (Lilo, a Hawaiian girl who has been acting out since the death of her parents) bonding with a fantasy creature (Stitch, a blue alien experiment designed as a weapon of destruction).—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
13 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Sluggard.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sluggard. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.
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