Lazy

How to spell lazy

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lazy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lazy mean?

1. adjectiveUnwilling to work or to make any effort.

Lazy in a sentence

• His manager called him lazy after he missed three deadlines.

• A lazy afternoon by the pool was exactly what they needed.

Where does lazy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Lazy appeared in English in the mid-1500s, and its exact source is genuinely uncertain. The most widely accepted view links it to Middle Low German lasich or losich, meaning 'feeble' or 'slack', or to the related Low German lasch, meaning 'weak' or 'idle', words that seem to have crossed into English through trade contact in the North Sea region. The original idea was of physical weakness or sluggishness rather than the modern sense of simply not wanting to work. Over time the meaning narrowed to describe an unwillingness to exert effort, which is how we use it today. The spelling is straightforward once you know that the soft middle sound is a z, and that the word ends in -y rather than -ey, a trap that occasionally trips writers who hear the long 'ee' ending.

How the word is built

• laze (root: idle, do little)
• -y (adjective suffix)