Take a Day Off - Be Lazy

Last week I used the word torpor. Turns out there are a lot of words for various kinds of inactivity: laziness, stupor, lethargy, or torpor.

Torpor means sluggish inactivity or lethargic indifference. It is different from lethargy in that torpor has a sense of self-imposition where lethargy may not be by choice. Torpor is different from ennui, for instance, in that ennui is dissatisfaction with inactivity whereas torpor can be the inactivity itself. It is different from stupor in that stupor is usually used in describing the results of the consumption of alcohol or drugs.

Torpor and stupor have unusual word spelling, which made me wonder about their etymology. Do they have the same source language?

Torpor came to English about 1600 from the Latin word torpere, which means to be inactive, dull, or numb. Stupor came from Latin, too, from the word stupor which means dullness, numbness, or insensible. The Latin word stupere means “be stunned.” The word arrived in English in the late 1300s.

So why do they both have an –or ending, when the Latin doesn’t? Dictionary.com says that the suffix –or occurs in words loaned from Latin and they are “usually denoting a condition or property of things or persons, sometimes corresponding to qualitative adjectives.” That qualitative aspect explains words like ardor, honor, horror, pallor, squalor and tremor. It also says “…a few other words that originally ended in different suffixes have been assimilated into this group (behavior; demeanor; glamour).”

From the same source word as torpor came the adjective torpid, in the 1610s, and it was not long before the adjective was formed into the noun torpidity. Use torpor, not torpidity, unless you want to be pedantic.

So where did lethargy come from? It has a much more diverse etymology. It came to English in the late 1300s from Old French (where it was spelled lethargie) unless it came directly from the Medeival Latin litargia, which developed from the Late Latin word lethargia, which came from the Greek word lethargia, which means “forgetfulness.” Lethargia was formed from the Greek words for forgetfulness (lethe) and idle (argos). Originally lethargos meant inactive through forgetfulness. I’m not sure what that means, and I am too lazy to figure it out.

Lazy, which means disinclined to activity or indolent, something I apparently feel every year at this time, since almost exactly a year ago is when I posted on indolent. Lazy has an interesting etymology because its origin is a matter of debate. In the 19^th century it was thought to have come from the verb lay, as tipsy comes from tip. But there is strong sentiment for it coming from German, French, Old Norse, or even Icelandic. So much activity for a word describing inactivity.

It’s enough to make one tired.  I think I will take tomorrow off.