slacker

See also: släcker

English

Etymology

From slack +‎ -er; compare especially slack off.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈslækɚ/
• Rhymes: -ækə(r)

Noun

slacker (plural slackers)

1. One who procrastinates or is lazy.
2. A person lacking a sense of direction in life; an underachiever.
3. A person who seeks to avoid military service.
   • 1918 September 10, New York Times, "Take Slackers into Army",

     [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, New York Times, "Wheeler assails Bureau 'Slackers'",

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

4. (very rare) A user of the Slackware Linux operating system.
   • 1996 August 15, stephen benson, "Re: How broken is Infomagic's Redhat linux?", comp.os.linux.setup, Usenet,

     I'm a slacker from way back btw

   • 2002 January 15, Josh, "Re: slackware installation issue", comp.os.linux, Usenet,

     Hope you become a happy slacker.

   • 2007 May 16, Dan C, "Re: Distro Poll, what do you use?", alt.os.linux, Usenet,

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

5. A member of a certain 1990s subculture associated with Generation X.

Translations

procrastinating or lazy person

• Finnish: velttoilija, laiskimus (fi)
• French: paresseux (fr) m, feignasse (fr) f
• Hindi: कामचोर m (kāmcor)
• Hungarian: lógós (hu)
• Maori: inukorokoro, karioi

• Romanian: leneș (ro) m
• Russian: безде́льник (ru) m (bezdélʹnik), лентя́й (ru) m (lentjáj), ло́дырь (ru) m (lódyrʹ)
• Spanish: procrastinador, perezoso (es), holgazán (es)
• Swedish: latmask (sv) c, slöfock (sv) c

Anagrams

• calkers, lackers, rackles, recalks