sluggish
Syllables: slugg·ish/ˈslʌɡɪʃ/
sluggish adjective: habitually idle and lazy; slothful; dull; inactive.
Adjective
sluggish (comparative sluggisher or more sluggish, superlative sluggishest or most sluggish)
- Habitually idle and lazy; slothful; dull; inactive
- a sluggish man
- [I]f he leaves the School poſſeſs'd of a ſluggiſh indolent Diſpoſition, and of Learning rather forc'd upon him than choſen, it is probable he will forget what he brought thence; but if he be active, emulous and aſpiring, he will certainly find Time for Reading and Thinking; for tho' it be a homely...1724, Pharmacopolæ Justificati: Or, Apothecaries Vindicated from the Imputation of Ignorance. […], London: […] J. Roberts, […], →OCLC, page 6
- Slow; having little motion.
- Vp thou tame River, vvake; / And from the liquid limbes this ſlumber ſhake: / Thou drovvn'st thy ſelfe in inofficious ſleepe; / And theſe thy ſluggiſh vvaters ſeeme to creepe, / Rather than flovv.1604 March 25 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), B[en] Jon[son], “The Pegme at Fen-church”, in B. Jon: His Part of King James His Royall and Magnificent Entertainement through His Honorable...
- We float upon a sluggish stream, / We ride no rapids mad, / While life is all a tempered dream / And every joy half sad.1913, Paul Laurence Dunbar, At Sunset Time
- Synonyms:
- crawling, slack, slow-moving, languid, languorous, draggy, tardy, creeping, dreich, gastropodous
- Antonyms:
- nimble
- Having no power to move oneself or itself; inert.
- Matter, being impotent, sluggish, and inactive, hath no power to stir or move itself.1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies
- Characteristic of a sluggard; dull; stupid; tame; simple.
- Synonyms:
- addlebrained, addlepated, airheaded, bee-brained, beef-witted, soft, beefheaded, beetle-headed, birdbrained, blockheaded
- Exhibiting economic decline, inactivity, slow, or subnormal growth.
- Inflation has been rising despite a sluggish economy.
- After an initial bounce back, the post-Covid Chinese economy has turned sluggish. Its property market - once a key driver of growth - is now mired in a credit crisis, exacerbating a domestic "debt bomb" that has ballooned from years of borrowing by local government and state-owned enterprises.2023 November 15, Tessa Wong, “Xi Jinping arrives in US as his Chinese Dream sputters”, in BBC
sluggish meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
sluggish in Hindi
- habitually idle and lazy; slothful; dull; inactive
- आलसी ālsī, शिथिल śithil
- slow; having little motion
- शिथिल śithil
sluggish in Tamil
- சோம்பலான, தாழ்த்தமான, மந்தமான, தாமதமுள்ள
sluggish in Marathi
- sluggish
- जड j̈aḍ
sluggish in Urdu
- فاتر, سست
More languagesFewer languages
- sluggish in Bengali
- ঢিমা ḍhima
- sluggish in Malayalam
- അലസതയുള്ള, മന്ദബുദ്ധിയായ, ചുറുചുറുക്കില്ലാത്ത, മടിയനായ
- sluggish in Kannada
- ಮಂದವಾದ, ನಿಧಾನವಾದ, ಸೋಮಾರಿಯಾದ, ಆಲಸ್ಯದ
- sluggish in Punjabi
- ਜਿੱਲ੍ਹੀ jillhī
- sluggish in Gujarati
- સુસ્ત
- sluggish in Sanskrit
- मन्दर mandara
- sluggish in Persian
- تنبل tambal
Examples of sluggish in a sentence
- And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.c. 1874, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ovid in Exile:
- He helps us to understand the insignificant points which mark the rapid undercurrents of the seemingly sluggish soul of Khalid.1910 January 12, Ameen Rihani, “On the Wharf of Enchantment”, in The Book of Khalid, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published...
- At first it is a sluggish stream (hence the name Deadwater) but begins to flow more swiftly before it reaches Kielder.1955 September, H. A. Vallance, “The Border Counties Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 594:
- [T]he stock of capital is necessarily a sluggish time series, while output is capable of making wide swings in short intervals[.]1970, Robert M. Solow, Growth Theory: An Exposition, Oxford University Press, page 3:
Synonyms of sluggish
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- torpid
- work-shy
- crawling
- slack
- slow-moving
- languid
- languorous
- draggy
- tardy
- creeping
- dreich
- gastropodous
- glacial
- heavy-footed
- inching
- labored
- leaden
- lead-footed
- lethargic
- low-speed
- lumbering
- plodding
- pokey
- ponderous
- slothlike
- slow
- slow as a snail
- slow as Christmas
- slow as molasses
- slow as molasses in January
Antonyms
Forms of sluggish
| comparative | sluggisher |
|---|---|
| comparative | more sluggish |
| superlative | sluggishest |
| superlative | most sluggish |
Origin of sluggish
From slug + -ish.
Words formed from sluggish
Phrases with sluggish
Words that rhyme with sluggish
Questions about sluggish
- What does sluggish mean?
- Sluggish means habitually idle and lazy; slothful; dull; inactive.
- What is sluggish in Hindi?
- Sluggish in Hindi is आलसी (ālsī), शिथिल (śithil). See Sluggish meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use sluggish in a sentence?
- And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.
- What part of speech is sluggish?
- Sluggish is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce sluggish?
- Sluggish is pronounced /ˈslʌɡɪʃ/.
Words near sluggish in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sluggish (page history and authors); sluggish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); जड (Marathi) (page history and authors); sluggish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ঢিমা (Bengali) (page history and authors); sluggish (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sluggish (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਜਿੱਲ੍ਹੀ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); sluggish (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-sluggish.wav.
Cite this entry: “sluggish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sluggish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.