Also 7 lase. [Back-formation from LAZY a.]
1. intr. To lie, move or act in a sleepy listless fashion; to enjoy oneself lazily. Also with advs.
a. 1592. Greene, Alphonsus, III. Wks. (Grosart), XIII. 370. And canst thou stand still lazing in this sort?
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, 17. Worke is left at home vndone, and loyterers laze in the streete.
1611. Cotgr., S’endormir en sentinello,… to laze it when he hath most need to looke about him.
1661. K. W., Conf. Charac., Lawyer (1860), 43. He begins to lag and laze, like a tired jade.
a. 1704. Compl. Servant-Maid (ed. 7), 7. Incline not to sloth, or laze in bed.
1802. Southey, in C. C. Southey, Life, II. 195. I must sleep, and laze, and play whist till bed time.
1868. Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. iv. 453. I had a very pleasant time, sailing, fishing, and lazing about.
1899. Elisabethe Dupuy, in Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 199/2. We lazed along, hardly seeming to move at all.
† b. To laze oneself: to indulge in indolence.
1612. T. Adams, Gallant’s Burden, 28 b. Hence Beggars lase themselues in the fields of idlenesse.
1620. Shelton, Quix., II. xxii. 146. Lazing himselfe as if he had wakened out of a … profound sleep.
1658. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm. (1669), 119/1. In a summer’s day … he lay lazing himself on the grass.
2. quasi-trans. To pass away in indolence.
1627–77. Feltham, Resolves, II. xxxiv. 228. So the bloudless Tortoise … lazeth his life away.
1891. E. Peacock, N. Brendon, II. 420. With the firm determination … of ‘lazing’ away the rest of the day.
Hence Lazing vbl. sb.
a. 1626. W. Sclater, 2 Thess. (1629), 283. The lazing of these loyterers is not numbred amongst mortals.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat. (1691), 366. Their lazing seems to me to proceed … from want of employment.
1880. H. S. Cooper, Coral Lands, II. 309. An hour or so of downright lazing on the heath.
