slacker

See also: släcker

English

Etymology

From slack +‎ -er; compare especially slack off.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈslækɚ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ækə(ɹ)

Noun

slacker (plural slackers)

1. One who procrastinates or is lazy; one who does not do their fair share or pull their own weight.
   • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 39:

     Some evil fellows said behind his back that Beowulf was white-livered and a slacker.

2. A person lacking a sense of direction in life; an underachiever.
   • 1985, Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Back to the Future, spoken by Mr. Strickland:

     You're a slacker, McFly. You've got aptitude, but you don't apply yourself. You remind me of your father: He was a slacker, too.

   • 2011 May 28, Catherine Rampell, quoting Carl Van Horn, “A Generation of Slackers? Not So Much”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     “I don’t think this is a generation of slackers,” said Carl Van Horn, a labor economist at Rutgers. “This image of the kid who goes off and skis in Colorado, I don’t think that’s the correct image. Today’s young people are very focused on trying to work hard and to get ahead.”

3. A member of a certain 1990s subculture associated with Generation X.
   • 2005 December 18, Craig Modderno, “Slacker Dot-Com”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Kevin Smith wrote and directed the slacker hits “Clerks,” “Dogma” and “Chasing Amy,” but lately it is his other life—maintaining six Web sites that he describes as “devoted to my fans and my films”—that seems to consume him.

   • 2010, Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus, page 121:

     Gen Xers were said to be lazy—“slackers” in the parlance of the time—who didn’t exhibit the straightforward work ethic of their predecessors.

4. (dated, US) A person who seeks to avoid military service.
   • 1918 September 10, “Take Slackers into Army”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     [S]everal hundred prisoners captured in North Jersey slacker raids last week and sent to this camp are being Inducted into military service today […]

   • 1943 September 29, C. P. Trussell, “Wheeler Assails Bureau ‘Slackers’”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN:

     Senator Burton K. Wheeler opened his fight in the Senate today […] , raising the cry of "slackers" against deferred workers in Government establishments and industry.

5. (rare, slang) A user of the Slackware Linux distribution.
   • 1996 August 15, stephen benson, “Re: How broken is Infomagic's Redhat linux?”, in comp.os.linux.setup‎^[5] (Usenet):

     I'm a slacker from way back btw

   • 2002 January 15, Josh, “Re: slackware installation issue”, in comp.os.linux‎^[6] (Usenet):

     Hope you become a happy slacker.

   • 2007 May 16, Dan C, “Re: Distro Poll, what do you use?”, in alt.os.linux‎^[7] (Usenet):

     Any real Slacker would know better than to top-post, AND post a bunch of HTML-crap to boot. You're not worthy.

Translations

procrastinating or lazy person

• Bulgarian: мързеливец (bg) m (mǎrzelivec)
• Catalan: gandul (ca) m
• Dutch: luiaard (nl) m
• Finnish: velttoilija, laiskimus (fi)
• French: paresseux (fr) m, feignasse (fr) f, tire-au-flanc (fr) m, glandeur (fr) m
• German: Faulpelz (de) m
• Hebrew: בַּטְלָן (he) m (batlán)
• Hindi: कामचोर m (kāmcor)
• Hungarian: lógós (hu)
• Ingrian: vetelys
• Macedonian: клошар m (klošar) (slang)
• Maori: inukorokoro, karioi, kaikora
• Polish: leń (pl) m
• Romanian: leneș (ro) m
• Russian: безде́льник (ru) m (bezdélʹnik), лентя́й (ru) m (lentjáj), ло́дырь (ru) m (lódyrʹ)
• Spanish: procrastinador (es), perezoso (es), holgazán (es), vago (es) m, huevón (es) m (Mexico)
• Swedish: latmask (sv) c, slöfock (sv) c

Adjective

slacker

1. Comparative form of slack: more slack.
   • 1957 April, P. J. Norris, “The Watford-St. Albans Branch”, in Railway Magazine, page 275:

     Trains normally pass at Bricket Wood, except at the slacker times of the day and on Sundays, when only one unit is in operation.

Anagrams

• Clarkes, calkers, lackers, rackles, recalks

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English slack.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sla.ke/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

Verb

slacker

1. (transitive, Quebec, colloquial) to slacken; to loosen
2. (intransitive, sports) to slackline

Conjugation

Conjugation of slacker (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	slacker
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	slackant /sla.kɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		slacké /sla.ke/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	slacke /slak/	slackes /slak/	slacke /slak/	slackons /sla.kɔ̃/	slackez /sla.ke/	slackent /slak/
	imperfect	slackais /sla.kɛ/	slackais /sla.kɛ/	slackait /sla.kɛ/	slackions /sla.kjɔ̃/	slackiez /sla.kje/	slackaient /sla.kɛ/
	past historic2	slackai /sla.ke/	slackas /sla.ka/	slacka /sla.ka/	slackâmes /sla.kam/	slackâtes /sla.kat/	slackèrent /sla.kɛʁ/
	future	slackerai /sla.kʁe/	slackeras /sla.kʁa/	slackera /sla.kʁa/	slackerons /sla.kʁɔ̃/	slackerez /sla.kʁe/	slackeront /sla.kʁɔ̃/
	conditional	slackerais /sla.kʁɛ/	slackerais /sla.kʁɛ/	slackerait /sla.kʁɛ/	slackerions /sla.kə.ʁjɔ̃/	slackeriez /sla.kə.ʁje/	slackeraient /sla.kʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	slacke /slak/	slackes /slak/	slacke /slak/	slackions /sla.kjɔ̃/	slackiez /sla.kje/	slackent /slak/
	imperfect2	slackasse /sla.kas/	slackasses /sla.kas/	slackât /sla.ka/	slackassions /sla.ka.sjɔ̃/	slackassiez /sla.ka.sje/	slackassent /sla.kas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	slacke /slak/	—	slackons /sla.kɔ̃/	slackez /sla.ke/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).