sluggish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sluggish, also slugissh and sloggish,^[2][3] formed from Middle English slugge (“a lazy person”) + -ish.^[2][3][4][5] The OED and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive it from either the noun slug or the old verb slug, to be lazy, with the suffix -ish;^[6][7][8] Merriam-Webster records a Middle English variant sluggus with another suffix.^[9] The noun slugge is probably of Norse origin:^[2][6] the OED compares sluggje (“a heavy, slow person”) in Norwegian dialects and slogga (“to be slow or sluggish”) in Swedish dialects.^[6][4] The stem is found earlier in English in the adjective sluggy (“sluggish, lazy”), from the early 13th century, now obsolete.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of people, lazy and slow to act: about 1450, in the Alphabet of Tales, of a man who was never after slugissh to rise for God's service.^[6][2] Barnhart dates the form sloggissh, lazy, to before 1450.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Also about 1450, in a translation of Thomas à Kempis, the word was used of the mind, for "dull, slow to understand or decide".^[6] From 1561 it described conditions marked by a want of action;^[6] things that hardly stir or move followed in the 1630s.^[4][6] Shakespeare's Cymbeline (before 1616) has the first record for "moving or flowing very slowly".^[6] Johnson (1755) gave a whole row of synonyms: dull, drowsy, lazy, slothful, idle, slow, inactive, inert.^[10] In the 19th century it was applied to animals (1836) and in medicine to the pulse or the liver (1843); since 1899 it has also described a disease slow to respond to treatment.^[6][8] Later dictionaries add an economy or market that is slow or inactive.^[11] Sluggish schizophrenia (1977) renders the Soviet Russian psychiatric term used for political and religious dissidents held in state hospitals.^[6][4][8]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – of people, lazy, slothful; of the mind, dull and slow.^[6][2]
• 1561 – of conditions, marked by inaction.^[6]
• before 1616 – moving or flowing slowly, in Shakespeare.^[6]
• 1640 – of things, slow to stir or act.^[6] Etymonline dates this use to the 1630s.^[4]
• 1836 – of animals, habitually slow.^[6][8]
• 1843 – in medicine, of the pulse or liver.^[6]
• 1899 – slow in responding to treatment.^[6][8]
• 1977 – sluggish schizophrenia.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Disinclined to activity or effort; indolent or torpid: The heat left the whole team sluggish.^[11][9][8]
2. Slow to respond, as to a stimulus or treatment: a sluggish immune response.^[11][9][6]
3. Moving, flowing or growing very slowly: a sluggish stream.^[11][8][6]
4. Of an economy or market, slow or inactive: sluggish sales.^[11]

Word family

• sluggishly
• sluggishness
• unsluggish

Related words

• slug
• sluggard

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster