Word.ws English Dictionary

laches

UK/ˈlætʃɪz/

laches noun: negligence in one's duty.

Noun

laches

  1. Negligence in one's duty.
    • But there was a quality in Mary that did not lightly invite to gallantry—a gravity and a balance that, had he looked closely into the matter, might have explained his laches.1919, Stanley J. Weyman, “V. The London Packet”, in The Great House
  2. An unreasonable delay in bringing a claim alleging a wrong, which means the person who waited shall not be permitted to seek an equitable remedy because the delay prejudiced the moving party.
    • It ill became him to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewd attorney.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XV, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...

Proper noun capitalized: Laches

Laches

  1. A surname.

laches meaning in Tamil and Kannada

laches in Tamil

மடமை, மட்டுமீறியத் தாமதம்

laches in Kannada

ಕರ್ತವ್ಯಲೋಪ, ಅಸಮರ್ಥನೀಯ ವಿಳಂಬ

Origin of laches

From Anglo-Norman laches, from Old French lachesse (“laxness”), from laschier, from Vulgar Latin laxico, frequentative of Latin laxo (“relax, moderate, weaken”).

Words that rhyme with laches

Questions about laches

What does laches mean?
Laches means negligence in one's duty.
What is laches in Tamil?
Laches in Tamil is மடமை, மட்டுமீறியத் தாமதம். See Laches meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is laches?
Laches can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce laches?
Laches is pronounced /ˈlætʃɪz/ (UK).

Words near laches in the dictionary

  1. Lachen
  2. lachenalia
  3. lachenalias
  4. Lacher
  5. Lachers
  6. laches
  7. Lachesian
  8. lachesillid
  9. lachesillids
  10. Lachesis
  11. lachesism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laches (page history and authors); Laches (page history and authors); laches (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); laches (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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