lotus-eater

Noun

lotus-eater (plural lotus-eaters)

1. (Greek) A member of the legendary people living on an island dominated by the lotus tree, who have forgotten their homes due to the fruits' narcotic and stupefying effect.
   • Men of Ithaca, this is meeter, / In the hollow rosy vale to tarry, / Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater!1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 116

   Synonyms:

   Lotophagi

2. (figuratively) Someone with a carefree, idyllic life.
   • Our readers will, we think, agree that this is admirably character­istic, and that the singers of this song must have made pretty free with the intoxicating fruit. How they got home you must read in Homer:—Mr. Tennyson—himself, we presume, a dreamy lotus-eater, a delicious lotus-eater—leaves them...1833 April/July, John Wilson Croker, “Poems by Alfred Tennyson”, in Quarterly Review, volume 49, page 92
   • I remember being ill once in a foreign hotel myself and how much I enjoyed it. To lie there careless of everything, quiet and warm, and with no weight upon the mind, to hear the clinking of the plates in the far-off kitchen as the scullion rinsed them and put them by; to watch the soft shadows come...1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXXX, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 367