Ĭn'do-lençe or Ĭn'do-len-çy, n.
n. [Fr. indolence, Sp. indolencia, It. indolenza, Lat. indolentia, from prefix in and dolere, to feel pain.]
Sense 1. The quality of being indolent; freedom from that which pains, vexes, or harasses; exemption from distress or toil; insensibility to pain or grief. [Obs.]
As there must be indolency where there is happiness, so there must not be indigency. Burnet.
Sense 2. Inaction, or want of exertion of body or mind, proceeding from love of ease or aversion to toil; habitual idleness; indisposition to labor; laziness.
As there is a great truth wrapped up in “diligence,” what a lie, on the other hand, lurks at the root of our present use of the word “indolence”! This is from “in” and “doleo,” not to grieve; and indolence is thus a state in which we have no grief or pain: so that the word, as we now employ it, seems to affirm that indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would constitute for us the absence of all pain. Trench.