laze

See also: laže, łażę, лазе, and лаже

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /leɪz/
• Rhymes: -eɪz
• Homophones: lase, lays

Etymology 1

Back-formation from lazy.

Verb

1. To be lazy, waste time.
   • 1599, Robert Greene, The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon, London, Act III,^[1]

     Behold by millions how thy men do fall

     Before Alphonsus like to sillie sheepe.

     And canst thou stand still lazing in this sort?

   • 1635, George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, London: John Grismond, Illustration 36, Book 1,^[2]

     And, lastly, such are they; that, having got

     Wealth, Knowledge, and those other Gifts, which may

     Advance the Publike-Good, yet, use them not;

     But Feede, and Sleepe, and laze their time away.

   • 1892, Israel Zangwill, Children of the Ghetto, being Pictures of a Peculiar People, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, Volume 1, Chapter 13, p. 191,^[3]

     But for this anachronism of keeping Saturday holy when you had Sunday also to laze on, Daniel felt a hundred higher careers would have been open to him.

   • 1982, Don DeLillo, The Names, New York: Vintage, 1989, Chapter 7, p. 160,^[4]

     “I could easily fall into this,” I said. “Laze my way through life. Coffee here, wine there. You can channel significant things into the commonplace. Or you can avoid them completely.”

2. To pass time relaxing; to relax, lounge.

   The cat spent the afternoon lazing in the sun.

   • 1939, Graham Greene, The Lawless Roads, Penguin, 1982, Chapter 4, p. 93,^[5]

     A football game went on beside the line; half the teams just lazed on the grass […]

Synonyms

• idle
• loaf
• take it easy

Derived terms

• laze about
• laze around
• lazen
• lazy

Translations

be lazy, waste time

• Bulgarian: мързелувам (mǎrzeluvam), безделнича (bg) (bezdelniča)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 散逛 (zh) (sǎnguàng)

• Czech: zahálet (cs)
• Finnish: laiskotella (fi), möllötellä
• German: Däumchen drehen (de)
• Hindi: मक्खियाँ मारना (makkhiyā̃ mārnā, literally “kill flies”)
• Hungarian: henyél (hu), lustálkodik (hu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: whakapateko, whakapahoho
• Norwegian: late seg
• Portuguese: vadiar (pt)
• Russian: безде́льничать (ru) (bezdélʹničatʹ), лентя́йничать (ru) (lentjájničatʹ), бить баклу́ши (ru) (bitʹ baklúši)
• Spanish: holgazanear (es), haraganear (es), estar a la bartola
• Swedish: lata sig (sv)

Noun

laze (countable and uncountable, plural lazes)

1. (countable) An instance of lazing.

   I had a laze on the beach after lunch.

2. (uncountable) Laziness. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Etymology 2

Blend of lava +‎ haze

Noun

laze (uncountable)

2. Acidic steam created when super-hot lava contacts salt water.
   • 2010, Patricia Erfurt-Cooper, Malcolm Cooper, Volcano and Geothermal Tourism: Sustainable Geo-Resources for Leisure and Recreation:

     Moreover, dense laze plumes are known to contain as much as 10 to 15ppm of HCl (USGS, 2008).

See also

• vog

Anagrams

• Elza, zale, zeal

---

Kapin

Noun

laze

1. nit

Further reading

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)