sloth

• sleuth (obsolete except for a group of bears)
• sloath, slowth (obsolete)

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sləʊθ/, /slɒθ/

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

sloth (countable and uncountable, plural sloths)

1. (uncountable) Laziness; slowness in the mindset; disinclination to action or labour.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 787–792:

     Who having ſpilt much blood, and don much waſte / Subduing Nations, and achievd thereby / Fame in the World, high titles, and rich prey, / Shall change thir courſe to pleaſure, eaſe, and ſloth, / Surfet, and luſt, till wantonneſs and pride / Raiſe out of friendſhip hoſtil deeds in Peace.

   • 1758, Benjamin Franklin, Preliminary Address to the Pennsylvania Almanac:

     Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears.

   • 1953 April, “Arrears of Station Maintenance”, in Railway Magazine, page 217:

     Mr. Elliot's frank statement that "sloth and untidiness are indefensible" is a sign that the task will be tackled with vigour.

2. (countable) Any animal in the suborder Folivora.
   1. (especially) Any herbivorous, arboreal South American mammal of the families Choloepodidae and Bradypodidae, noted for its slowness and inactivity.
   2. (paleontology) Any of the extinct group of ground sloths.
3. (collective, rare, countable) A group of bears.

• Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins.

• (animal): tardigrade (obsolete)

• diligence

• (animal): two-toed sloth, three-toed sloth, Australian sloth, ground sloth, pale-throated 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).
   • 1676, John Bunyan, The Strait Gate, or, Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven‎^[1], London: Francis Smith, page 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^[2], London: T. Passinger, page 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, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “sloth”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Holts, Loths, holts, loths