Definition of "lazy" in English

adjective

1. Unwilling to do work or make an effort; disinclined to exertion.

   • Get out of bed, you lazy lout!
   • If there bee any lasie fellow, any that cannot away with worke, any that would wallow in pleasures, hee is hastie to be priested. And when hee is made one, and has gotten a benefice, he consorts with his neighbour priests, who are altogether given to pleasures; and then both hee, and they, live, not like Christians, but like epicures; drinking, eating, feasting, and revelling, till the cow come home, as the saying is.

2. Causing or characterised by idleness; relaxed or leisurely.

   • I love staying inside and reading on a lazy Sunday.

3. Showing a lack of effort or care.

   • lazy writing

4. Sluggish; slow-moving.

   • We strolled along beside a lazy stream.

5. Lax:

6. (of a cattle brand) Turned so that (the letter) is horizontal instead of vertical.

7. (computing theory) Employing lazy evaluation; not calculating results until they are immediately required.

   • a lazy algorithm

8. (UK, obsolete or dialect) Wicked; vicious.

verb

1. (informal) To laze, act in a lazy manner.

noun

1. A lazy person.

   • 1898, Jason E. Hammond, “Work and Reward” in Suggestive Programs for Special Day Exercises, Lansing, Michigan: Department of Public Instruction for District Schools, p. , The dudes and noodles, cads and snobs, had better move away, This busy land can’t spare the room for lazies, such as they, To foreign climate let them go and there forever stay. Ours is a land for busy workers.

2. (obsolete) Sloth (animal).