Lazy
ennui
(ahn WE) This noun is the French import for referring to boredom,
listlessness. If you’re bored, you can at least give a Gallic shrug to express
your state.
pall
(rhymes with wall) This verb describes the fact of a phenomenon’s
becoming boring or wearying. (It is a verbal cousin to appall, to be filled
with shock or dismay.)
descry
(dih SCRY) This verb comes to us from the French word for “to call
out.” It means “to catch sight of something that is difficult to see” or “to
discover something by very careful scrutiny” (see #1). It should not be
confused with “decry,” which comes from the same French root but means
“to openly condemn.”
placebo
(pla-SEE-bo) A substance that contains no medicinal value but one
which the patient believes has such value. (In English it is a noun but
comes directly from the Latin verb form meaning “I shall please.”)
salubrious
(sal-OO-bree-us) Describing circumstances or conditions favorable
to good health.
enervated
(EN er vat ed) This adjective (from the verb “enervate”)
describes a sense of weakened vitality, a loss of energy, letting you feel as
if some vital nerve had been removed.
banal
(buh NAL or buh NAHL or even BAY nul) This adjective describes the
predictably trite, the ordinary.
gander
(GAN der) Aside from being “a male goose,” this noun is an informal
way of saying “a look or glance.”
elixir
(ee-LIX-er) A liquid potion or medicine falsely believed to cure any
ailment.
malinger
(ma-LING-er) To pretend to be ill in order to get out of unpleasant
work.
jaded
(JAY ded) This condition of world-weariness may come from
overfamiliarity or overindulgence in something originally pleasant. The
word has nothing to do with the gemstone “jade” but derives from an old
word for a broken-down or useless horse.
somnolent
(SOM no lent) This adjective is a fancy way of saying “sleepy.”
(Memory trick: think of “insomnia,” not getting any sleep.)
askance
(ah SKANS) The origin of this adverb is unknown, but it describes the
way a person looks at something. It means “with disapproval or suspicion” or
“sideways” (which suggests that it might come from the Italian for “slantingly”
or “obliquely”).
panacea
(pan-a-SEE-a) Literally, a “cure-all,” a substance believed to be a
remedy for any disease or difficulty.
benign
(be-NINE) Used in a general sense to mean kind or friendly, this
word has the specific medical sense of meaning not dangerous to health.
lassitude
(LASS ih tude) Another noun for emotional fatigue or a dreamy,
lazy mood, “lassitude” comes from the Latin word for “weary.”
phlegmatic
(fleg MAT ik) Here is an adjective describing a person who is
slow to act, slow to get angry—more or less the far extreme from
temperamental. While it can have the positive sense of “calm,” today it
more often has a negative feel, possibly as suggested by the feel of a throat
full of phlegm. (Word historians may enjoy knowing the long pedigree of
this concept: as early as 400 BCE it was regarded as one of four basic
“humors” or temperaments.)
ogle
(OH gle) This verb comes to us from the German word for “eye.” It
means “to stare at,” usually in a rude or flirtatious way.
nostrum
(NOS-trum) In past eras, an ineffective potion or pill sold by a
dishonest person; now, any possible remedy, not scientifically proven, for
a minor ailment or bodily condition.
noxious
(nock-shus) and innocuous (in NOCK u-us) Describing, respectively,
that which does harm and that which does no harm.
otiose
(O te ose) This adjective may describe a condition of idleness or laziness
or a person or thing that is ineffective. The word derives from the
Latin word for “leisure.”
torpid
(TOR pid) If you’re torpid, you have no energy. If you’re a certain
kind of animal, you might be hibernating, but if you’re a plain old
human being, you’ve let yourself get bored stiff. And that’s what the
Latin root means.
espy
(es SPY) Like descry, this verb that means “to glimpse something
partially hidden.” It comes to us from the French, using the same root as
the word “espionage,” which means “spying in order to obtain secret information.”
myopic
(my OPP ik) From the Greek word for “nearsighted,” this adjective
can be used both literally and figuratively. Someone who needs glasses
because they can not see clearly at a distance is “myopic,” but so is
someone who is “short-sighted” and “lacks long-range perspective.”
dyspeptic
(dis PEP-tic) Literally, descriptive of a person suffering from
indigestion but often used more generally for a person who is grouchy
or ill-tempered.