Indolent
adj
adj ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Habitually lazy, procrastinating, or resistant to physical labor.
"The indolent girl resisted doing her homework."
- 2 Inducing laziness.
"indolent comfort"
- 3 Causing little or no physical pain; progressing slowly; inactive (of an ulcer, etc.).
- 4 Healing slowly.
Adjective
- 1 (of tumors, e.g.) slow to heal or develop and usually painless wordnet
- 2 disinclined to work or exertion wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"He was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards."
Etymology
From French indolent or directly from Late Latin indolēns, from in- (“not”) + dolēns (“hurting”), from doleo (“to hurt”). The later sense of “living easily, slothful” perhaps developed in French.
Related phrases
More for "indolent"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.