Noun: lazy
| Singular | lazy |
| Plural | lazies |
Sample Sentences
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The “lazies” of the party seized the opportunity of remaining behind—wandering, as they said, though all the cross paths were marked. [1874, David Livingstone, chapter 7, in The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, from 1865 to his death, volume I, London: John Murray, page 159:]
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1898, Jason E. Hammond, “Work and Reward” in Suggestive Programs for Special Day Exercises, Lansing, Michigan: Department of Public Instruction for District Schools, p. ,
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The dudes and noodles, cads and snobs, had better move away,
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This busy land can’t spare the room for lazies, such as they,
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To foreign climate let them go and there forever stay.
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Ours is a land for busy workers.
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Which myth of the Greek crisis would you like to debunk? — That the Greeks are a nation of lazies on a permanent vacation; that austerity measures, as they were implemented, were proportionally distributed or worth the sacrifice. [2016 May 11, Marta Bausells, Eleni Stefanou, “Meet the Greek writers revolutionising poetry in the age of austerity”, in The Guardian:]
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To strenuous minds there is an inquietude in overquietness, and no laboriousness in labour; and to tread a mile after the slow pace of a snail, or the heavy measures of the lazy of Brazilia, were a most tiring pennance, and worse than a race of some furlongs at the Olympicks. [1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, pages 49–50:]
Nouns inflected like lazy
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Attested since 1540, origin uncertain. Probably from Low German and Middle Low German lasich (“slack, feeble, lazy”), from las, from Old Saxon lask, from Proto-Germanic *lasiwaz, *laskaz (“feeble, weak”), from Proto-Indo-European *las- (“weak”).
2. Akin to Dutch leuzig (“lazy”), German lässig (“casual, nonchalant, laid-back, easy-going”), Old Norse lasinn (“limpy, tired, weak”), Old English lesu, lysu (“false, evil, base”). More at lush.
3. An alternative etymology traces lazy to Early Modern English laysy, a derivative of lay (plural lays + -y) in the same way that tipsy is derived from tip. See lay. See: Old Norse Nouns '
lasinn', Old English Nouns '
lesu'.