The quality or condition of being indolent; inaction, or lack of exertion of body or mind, proceeding from love of ease or aversion to toil; habitual idleness; indisposition to labor; laziness; sloth; inactivity.
“Life spent in
indolence, and therefore sad.”
— Cowper.
“As there is a great truth wrapped up in “diligence,” what a lie, on the other hand, lurks at the root of our present use of the word “
indolence”! This is from “in” and “doleo,” not to grieve; and
indolence is thus a state in which we have no grief or pain; so that the word, as we now employ it, seems to affirm that indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would constitute for us the absence of all pain.”
— Trench.