indolence

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French indolence, or from its etymon Latin indolentia (“freedom from pain; insensibility”), from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + dolēns (“hurting, suffering; grieving, lamenting”) + -ia (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Dolēns is the present participle of doleō (“to hurt, suffer; to be sorry, deplore, grieve for, lament”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *delh₁- (“to divide, split”).

noun

1. Habitual laziness or sloth.
   There are others who have let their reputations become incrusted or blighted with indolences, or self-indulgence, or errors that are not errors unto death. These should not think to put away the tarnished name; but rather, by some new life and better efforts, to raise it from ignominy until it shows clean again. 1887 March, Leonard Kip, “The Puntacooset Colony”, in The Overland Monthly: Devoted to the Development of the Country, volume IX (Second Series), number 51, San Francisco, Calif.: Commercial Publishing Company, →OCLC, chapter VII, page 254, column 1
   [N]ow, after five weeks of doing nothing, I am an authority on the subject of indolence and glad to share my views with you. 10 September 2001, Garrison Keillor, “In Praise of Laziness”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Warner Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2014-09-22
2. (pathology) Lack of pain in a tumour.
3. (obsolete) A state in which one feels no pain or is indifferent to it; a lack of any feeling.
4. (obsolete) A state of repose in which neither pain nor pleasure is experienced.