[Vocabulary] He is an idle person.

[inase]

Hello,

The following is my understanding about "idle" in comparison with synonyms such as "lazy" and "indolent" when it means laziness. Please let me know your take on these.

1. He is a lazy person. (He is lazy by nature.)
2. He is an indolent person. (He is lazy by nature and is habitually fooling around.)
3. He is an idle person. (He is not interested in work but he shows enthusiasm for worldly pleasure such as gambling, going places, etc.)

Inase

 

[Raymott]

Indolent means lazy. It just has a different derivation. There's no necessity to be fooling around.
The others are close enough.

 

[inase]

What about the difference in the level of innate laziness among the three? There seems to be a nuance that an "idle" person has acquired the habit of laziness rather recently. A "lazy" or "indolent" person may have shown laziness earlier in his/her life than an "idle" person.

 

[GoesStation]

"Idle" means unoccupied. It doesn't mean unwilling to work.

 

[probus]

In AmE we rarely if ever call a person idle. We say soneone is lazy or indolent. The only difference is that the former is a 25 cent word, while the latter is a 75 cent word. In other words, lazy is the usual everyday usage, and indolent is more pretentious.

 

[Tdol]

I don't think an idle person necessarily shows enthusiasm for pleasures such as gambling, going places.

They might be too lazy to hit the casino.

 

[Raymott]

'Idle' is a very common term used in 19th century novels to describe an independently rich young man who lives a dissolute life, and does nothing productive. He's not necessarily lazy in a strict sense.

 

[Tdol]

And in expressions like idle whim, it doesn't mean lazy, but impulsive, not thought-out, etc.