sluggishadj.

1827 D. Johnson Sketches Indian Field Sports (ed. 2) 214 There is one kind of snake in India of a sluggish nature.]

1836 A. Combe Physiol. Digestion i. ii. 25 Compared with the torpid and sluggish reptile, the active..quadruped requires.. a much larger quantity of nutriment.

1884 Encycl. Brit. XVII. 241/1 The sluggish puff-adder (Clotho arietans) is common and very dangerous.

1561 J. Hollybush tr. H. Brunschwig Most Excellent Homish Apothecarye f. 4^v A slouggish or slepery disease.

1570 in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. xi. 111 Remuif all sluggische slewth away.

1632 W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. x. 446 This sluggish and idle husbandry.

1670 J. Milton Hist. Brit. vi. 249 Ethelred, whom no adversity could awake from his soft and sluggish life.

1788 J. Reynolds Disc. Royal Acad. 250 Either a vain confidence, or a sluggish despair.

1798 M. Edgeworth & R. L. Edgeworth Pract. Educ. I. iii. 92 It is of consequence to distinguish between slow and sluggish attention.

1838 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Ferdinand & Isabella III. ii. x. 26 A life of sluggish inaction.

1873 P. G. Hamerton Intellect. Life i. iii. 21 Each of us has a little cleverness and a great deal of sluggish stupidity.

1977 Sci. News 10 Sept. 165 ‘Even if one should accept the diagnosis of sluggish schizophrenia in these and similar cases,’ Chodoff said, ‘one must wonder why a disease without delusions, hallucinations or agitated behavior should require injections of chloropromazine (an antischizophrenic drug) for its treatment.’

1978 Nature 4 May 6/2 Yet, when committed, Shikhanovich was diagnosed as a ‘psychopath with the possibility of the onset of sluggish schizophrenia’ (the latter ‘disease’, of course, being unknown to non-Soviet diagnosis).

1980 Prisoners of Conscience in USSR (Amnesty Internat.) (ed. 2) 184 Schizophrenia, often in its ‘sluggish’ form, has been the diagnosis most commonly made of dissenters.

1640 Bp. J. Wilkins Disc. New Planet (1707) ix. 250 Matter is of it self a dull and sluggish thing.

1692 R. Bentley Boyle Lect. vi. 33 This poor Atom, sluggish and unactive as it is, doth involve Necessity of Existence.

1763 C. Churchill Ghost iv. 173 The sluggish Oars suspended hung.

1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 420 A very sluggish species of land is formed.

1827 G. Canning Poet. Wks. 3 Pale ivy throws its sluggish arms around.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 406 Bacon had sown the good seed in a sluggish soil and an ungenial season.

1897 Daily News 1 Apr. 2/6 Yarns are sluggish, and..the tendency in some directions favours buyers.

1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. ix. 100 Sluggish and dilated, or else extremely contracted pupils.

1845 G. Budd On Dis. Liver 172 Pulse..sluggish, exceedingly compressible.

1845 G. Budd On Dis. Liver 317 The bowels are sluggish.

1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. IV. 25 A symptom of ‘sluggish liver’.

1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VIII. 519 An effect similar to that of nitrate of silver in sluggish ulcers.

1648 Bp. J. Wilkins Math. Magick i. xx. 141 That orb being the lowest of all, and consequently of a dull and sluggish motion.

1796 F. Burney Camilla V. ix. i. 2 His wry looks and sluggish pace always proclaimed his ill will to the task.

1826 G. Samouelle Gen. Direct. collecting Exotic Insects & Crustacea 38 The former have a sluggish flight.

1835 J. Duncan Nat. Hist. Beetles (Naturalist's Libr.: Entomol. II) 252 Its motions are so sluggish, that it may be said to drag itself along rather than walk.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 379 Their velocity is..contrasted with the sluggish pace of the continental posts.