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Lackadaisical   Listen
adjective
lackadaisical  adj.  
1.
Affectedly pensive; languidly sentimental; dreamy.
2.
Lacking spirit or liveliness; lethargic; listless; languid.
3.
Indolent; lazy; idle, especially in a dreamy manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lackadaisical" Quotes from Famous Books



... were of the romantic order. Colin bleated forth his passion in rhyme, and cast sheep's eyes from among his flock, while Phyllis coquetted with her crook and stuck posies in his hat; royal Ferdinand and Miranda played at chess; Ivanhoe upset his fellow-men like ninepins for love of lackadaisical Rowena; and "sweet Moll" turned the pages while her lover, Milton, sang. But in our day the jolly little god, though still a heathen in the severe simplicity of his attire, has become modernized in his arts, and invented ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... happiness, and even comfort, to Clive the hero, by the abominations of his mother-in-law. The woman is so iniquitous, and so tremendous in her iniquities, that she rises to tragedy. Who does not know Mrs. Mack the Campaigner? Why at the end of his long story should Thackeray have married his hero to so lackadaisical a heroine as poor little Rosey, or brought on the stage such a she-demon as Rosey's mother? But there is the Campaigner in all her vigour, a marvel of strength of composition,—one of the most vividly drawn characters in fiction;—but ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay—I don't know how long—on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce. It ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... an aggressive message with caressing little strokes. No! Jab it in with hard, swift solar plexus punches. You cannot strike fire from flint or from an audience with love taps. Say to a crowded theatre in a lackadaisical manner: "It seems to me that the house is on fire," and your announcement may be greeted with a laugh. If you flash out the words: "The house's on fire!" they will crush one another in ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... she cried. "What have I ever done to make him turn white or red, or to 'burst out despairingly,' and all that kind of sentimental nonsense? Because he is lackadaisical and is experiencing strange, vague emotions, must I be afflicted in like manner? Must I break faith with one I do love and do violence to my own feelings, just because this farmer wants me to? You know what's the matter with him—Clara saw at a glance—and the ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... qualities. Of two infants one will call lustily for whatever he wants, show great glee in anticipating, great eagerness in seeking, and a high degree of satisfaction when his desire is gratified. And another will be lackadaisical in his appetite, whimsical, "hard to please" and much more difficult to keep pleased. Fatigue will strip the second child of the capacity to eat and sleep, to say nothing of his desires for social pleasures, whereas ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... the purpose of a nest. Instead of seeking how to construct a perfect dwelling place, these slipshod builders spent most of their hours in courtship. Sometimes, owing to the carelessness of the lackadaisical doves, a dry stick released by bill or claw would fall pattering among the branches, and drop, with a plash, into the river, where it would be borne by the current past the otter's lair. From every bush and brake ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... me to be guilty of unpardonable effrontery in holding Min's hand such an unconscionably long time in his, when presenting a miserable shop-bouquet; and, as for the lackadaisical airs of that insufferable donkey, Horner—I can find no words adequate wherewith to express what I thought; ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... knowledge sitting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white smother of dust. He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driver afflicted by a sore foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broomstick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started to run after the carriage, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... word, of course. We just need her to round out, I was going to say, the atmosphere. It's too studious. Those Kirkland girls are going to college, dearly loved cousins, quite sufficient for themselves, and there's that granery, yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, one who writes poetry and is too lackadaisical for anything. What we want is a rollicking, fun loving girl ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... enthusiastically that we cannot imagine Rosalind or Portia or Cordelia or Juliet with neuralgia or headache. And I believe that Shakespeare's women have now taken the place of the more lackadaisical and sentimental heroines of the past in the minds ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... enthusiasm we are almost as certain to fail of achieving an end as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing the grade. Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long as the path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comes to hill-climbing and the real experiences of life that serve to develop character, it is likely to give up the contest and surrender the prize it might win to other and more ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman

... holiness and carry him on to happiness who is himself quite indifferent to the entire spiritual transaction—whose attitude is that of one willing to be saved if he be not asked to take much trouble about it. That lackadaisical attitude can never produce any result in the spiritual order; it can only ensure the spiritual decline and death of one who has not thought it worth while to ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... the Daisy has had little influence, though some have derived "lackadaisy" and "lackadaisical" from the Daisy, but there is, certainly, no connection between the words. Daisy, however, was (and, perhaps, still is) a provincial adjective in the eastern counties. A writer in "Notes and Queries" (2nd Series, ix. 261) says that Samuel Parkis, in a letter ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe



Words linked to "Lackadaisical" :   languid, lethargic, dreamy



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