INDOLENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Indolence

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noun

Indolence n.

Freedom from that which pains, or harasses, as toil, care, grief, etc. (Obs.) "I have ease, if it may not rather be called indolence."

The quality or condition of being indolent; inaction, or lack of exertion of body or mind, proceeding from love of ease or aversion to toil; habitual idleness; indisposition to labor; laziness; sloth; inactivity. "Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad." "As there is a great truth wrapped up in "diligence," what a lie, on the other hand, lurks at the root of our present use of the word "indolence"! This is from "in" and "doleo," not to grieve; and indolence is thus a state in which we have no grief or pain; so that the word, as we now employ it, seems to affirm that indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would constitute for us the absence of all pain."

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Etymology of 'Indolence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Indolence" Quotes from Famous Books

... chance and given way to indolence,—all the more natural under the very hopelessness of their situation,—they would never have outlived that day. The Catamaran might not have gone to the bottom, but she would have gone to pieces; and it is not likely that any of her crew would ...

— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... skin—the color of gingerbread—and his softness of manner only hid from stupid eyes, and disclosed to observing ones, the half-Moorish nature of a peasant of Granada, which nothing had as yet roused from its phlegmatic indolence. ...

— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... erect he would have been tall, but he stood slouching lazily, his shoulders bent, his hands in his pockets. When he spoke his voice was in keeping with the indolence of his bearing. It was soft, hesitating, carrying with it the courteous deference of the South. Only his eyes showed that to what was going forward he was ...

— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... of remembering. Music had never come to her in that sensuous form before. It had always been a thing to be struggled with, had always brought anxiety and exaltation and chagrin—never content and indolence. Thea began to wonder whether people could not utterly lose the power to work, as they can lose their voice or their memory. She had always been a little drudge, hurrying from one task to another—as if ...

— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... six months in Paris and for six months in his little chateau at Tourbeville. Having married the daughter of a neighboring, squire, he had lived a good and peaceful life in the indolence of a man who has nothing to do. Of a calm and quiet disposition, and not over-intelligent he used to spend his time quietly regretting the past, grieving over the customs and institutions of the day and ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

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