trifles.’ LETHARGIC. This near-synonym for ‘lazy’, meaning ‘affected with inertness or inactivity; dull, sleepy, sluggish, apathetic’, came into being in the seventeenth century: the OED’s first citation is from John Donne’s ‘Second Anniversary’ from 1612: ‘ To be thus stupid is Alacrity; / Men thus lethargique haue best Memory.’ TARDY. More specifically meaning ‘slow’ – or, indeed, ‘sluggish’ – the word ‘tardy’ (from the Latin tardus, ‘slow’, whence we also get words like retardation to describe something slowing down) has been in use since the fifteenth century. L AZY - BONES A particularly lazy or indolent person. Come on, lazy-bones, you've spent half the day in bed. Time to get up and be productive! L ARDASS offensive slang An obese person, often one considered to be lazy.They hired some lardass to be a security guard—I don't know how he'll be able to stop a thief from running away. I turned into a bit of a lardass after the accident, as all I could do with two broken legs was stay inside and play video games all day. ( AS ) L AZY AS A BEAR To be particularly lazy or indolent. Come on, you've spent half the day in bed. Stop being lazy as a bear and get to work on your science project! Don't just sit there as lazy as a bear—help me bring in the groceries!
