sloth

• sloath, slowth (obsolete)

From Middle English slouthe, slewthe (“laziness”), from Old English slǣwþ (“sloth, indolence, laziness, inertness, torpor”), from Proto-Germanic *slaiwiþō (“slowness, lateness”), equivalent to slow +‎ -th. Cognate with Scots sleuth (“sloth, slowness”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sləʊθ/, /slɒθ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /slɔθ/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /slɑθ/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /slɒθ/
• Rhymes: -əʊθ, -ɒθ

• Audio (UK)

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sloth (countable and uncountable, plural sloths)

1. (uncountable) Laziness; slowness in the mindset; disinclination to action or labour.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     [They] change their course to pleasure, ease, and sloth.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Franklin

     Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears.

2. (countable) A herbivorous, arboreal South American mammal of the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae, noted for its slowness and inactivity.
3. (rare) A collective term for a group of bears.

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins.

• (animal): two-toed sloth, three-toed sloth

• slowth

sloth (third-person singular simple present sloths, present participle slothing, simple past and past participle slothed)

1. (obsolete, intransitive, transitive) To be idle; to idle (away time).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

   • 1676, John Bunyan, The Strait Gate, or, Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven, London: Francis Smith, p. 69,

     […] the most of professors are for imbezzeling, mispending and slothing away their time, their talents, their opportunities to do good in […]

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 2,

     That you endeavour carefully to please your Lady, Master or Mistress, be faithful, diligent and submissive to them, encline not to sloth or laze in bed, but rise early in a morning.

• sloth in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• sloth in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Loths, holts, loths