Word.ws English Dictionary

accidie

UK/ˈæk.sɪ.di//ˈæk.sə.di/

accidie noun: sloth, slothfulness, especially as inducing general listlessness and apathy.

Noun

accidie (uncountable)

  1. (literary) Sloth, slothfulness, especially as inducing general listlessness and apathy.
    • Underneath the surface excitements the demon of accidie had her by the hair.1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 363

Origin of accidie

From Middle English accidie, from Anglo-Norman accidie, Old French accide, accidie, from Late Latin accīdia, alteration of acēdia (“sloth, torpor”), from Ancient Greek ἀκήδεια (akḗdeia, “indifference”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + κῆδος (kêdos, “care”). Doublet of acedia.

Questions about accidie

What does accidie mean?
Accidie means sloth, slothfulness, especially as inducing general listlessness and apathy.
What part of speech is accidie?
Accidie is a noun.
How do you pronounce accidie?
Accidie is pronounced /ˈæk.sɪ.di/ (UK).

Words near accidie in the dictionary

  1. accidents of birth
  2. accidents waiting to happen
  3. accidents will happen
  4. accidents will happen in the best regulated families
  5. accidia
  6. accidie
  7. accidious
  8. accinge
  9. accinged
  10. accinges
  11. accinging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: accidie (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-accidie.oga.

Cite this entry: “accidie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accidie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.