What is the lazy man's favorite day? The next day. No matter the good or the bad weather as long as the phlegmatic can do nothing. Like the "lazy", literally "done nothing", we are sometimes tempted to shirk our responsibilities. So by pushing our homework to the Greek calendars, we become "procrastinators", that is to say people who "adjourn", ask for a "deadline". Individuals affected by this acute flemmatitis virus benefit from a rare glossary in the dictionary. Anthology.
Rossard
The verb "rosser", which means "to strike with violence" is certainly better known than its noun "rossard". However the word describes very well, in a popular register, the lazy person. According to Le Trésor de la langue française, the word comes from "rosse", itself borrowed from the High German medium ross "horse" which was probably introduced into French by German mercenaries. The origin seems astonishing, however the "rossard" also designates the "bad horse". We find him under the pen of Zola in Germinal (1885): "What's wrong with this old bastard, to stop short? ... He'll make my legs break."
Flank
The equine also inspired another name for the French language. The "tire-au-flanc" would have been born from the image of the horse which is shirking, we learn in Le Trésor de la langue française. However, we find the expression, from the 19th century, to describe a "soldier who dodges service" . Since then, we can use the expression in the sense of "lazy who shies away from chores, exercise, work, letting them accomplish by others". The “tire-au-flanc” is so charitable that it has been given an otherwise less sympathetic nickname: “the tire-au-cul”.
Loach
Let's stay in the animal vocabulary with the "loach". The word probably comes from a popular Latin laukka "fish, slug", itself derived from a Gallic leuka "whiteness", as we can read in The Treasury of the French language. In addition to a "small freshwater fish" , the loach can designate in the Southwest, a "slug". From the gelatinous gastropod to the lazy, the shift in meaning was found. Today, since the end of the 19th century, we can use the expression "fat, soft like a loach" to speak of the lazy.
Gnan-gnan
Usually, the adjective is used mainly to speak of a childish thing, even cucul praline. However, and as we learn from the CNRTL, the word taken as a noun can describe a person who "lacks energy, physical or intellectual spring". Its form could either come from the redoubling of the onomatopoeia "gnan" or from the redoubled form of the adjective deny / negating / gaining "stupid", "null", "lazy", from the name "nothing". The “gnan-gnan” is therefore a pleonasm and a lazy double.
Bradype
Let's close this short list with an amazing noun. The "bradype" is made up of two Greek words: bradus "slow" and pous "foot". Literally, he describes a being with a slow gait. The word is found especially in the lexicon of zoology and indicates "a kind of toothless mammals" . Nevertheless, one still notes it in Flaubert, in his Correspondances in 1854: “The work goes fairly smoothly. I made four pages this week, including two since yesterday, which is a lot for a bradype like me. ”
