sloth

Etymology

From Middle English slouthe, slewthe (“laziness”), from Old English slǣwþ (“sloth, indolence, laziness, inertness, torpor”), from Proto-West Germanic *slaiwiþu, from Proto-Germanic *slaiwiþō (“slowness, lateness”), equivalent to slow + -th. Cognate with Scots sleuth (“sloth, slowness”).

noun

1. (uncountable) Laziness; slowness in the mindset; disinclination to action or labour.
   Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears. 1758, Benjamin Franklin, Preliminary Address to the Pennsylvania Almanac
2. (countable) A herbivorous, arboreal South American mammal of the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae, noted for its slowness and inactivity.
3. (rare) A collective term for a group of bears.

verb

1. (obsolete, intransitive, transitive) To be idle; to idle (away time).
   […] the most of professors are for imbezzeling, mispending and slothing away their time, their talents, their opportunities to do good in […] 1676, John Bunyan, The Strait Gate, or, Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven, London: Francis Smith, page 69
   That you endeavour carefully to please your Lady, Master or Mistress, be faithful, diligent and submissive to them, encline not to sloth or laze in bed, but rise early in a morning. 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 2