Laziness
nounThe state or quality of being unwilling to work or exert effort.
How to spell laziness
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce laziness
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does laziness mean?
- nounThe state or quality of being unwilling to work or exert effort.
Laziness in a sentence
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His manager blamed the missed deadline on sheer laziness.
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A long weekend of pure laziness left the chores untouched.
Where does laziness come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The noun is built from the adjective 'lazy' plus the native suffix '-ness', which English has long used to turn a quality into a state, as in 'kindness' or 'darkness'. The base word 'lazy' first appears in English in the 1540s, and its ultimate origin is genuinely uncertain. Many scholars connect it to the Middle Low German 'lasich', meaning 'feeble' or 'languid', or to a related Low German and Dutch family of words for slackness and idleness, which would fit the patterns of trade contact across the North Sea. An older folk idea that it derives from the Latin 'lassus', meaning 'weary', is now largely rejected on phonetic grounds. The spelling trap is small but real: the adjective ends in '-zy', and when '-ness' is added the 'y' shifts to 'i', giving 'laziness' rather than the tempting 'lazyness'.
How the word is built
- lazy (disinclined to work, from 'lazy')
- -ness (noun suffix forming a state or quality)
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