slouch

UK/ˈslaʊ̯t͡ʃ/US/ˈslaʊ̯t͡ʃ/

verbB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,890 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: slouching, slouched

To slouch is to sit or stand with a drooping back. Shoulders forward, spine curved, all the air gone out of you.

It is the posture of boredom and teenage indifference, which is why it attracts so much telling off — sit up, don't slouch. As a noun it means the posture itself, and a slouch hat is one with a soft drooping brim. There is one idiom that runs the other way, since saying somebody is no slouch means they are very good indeed at the thing in question.

Definitions of slouch

1verbslouchTo sit, stand or move with a drooping posture.B2
“He slouched in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.”

Phrases it lives in

no slouch — surprisingly good at something

Where it comes from

Latin
laxus — loose, slack
Swedish
slak — slack, soft and flexible
Old Norse
slókr — lazy fellow
Middle English
slugge
English, today
slouch

Unclear. Perhaps from Middle English slugge, from Old Norse slókr (“lazy fellow”). See also Swedish sloka (“to slouch, wilt”), related to Swedish slak (“slack, soft and flexible”) and Latin laxus (“loose, slack”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Body Language & Gestures

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

slouch in the wild

A slouch hat is a wide-brimmed felt or cloth hat most commonly worn as part of a military uniform, often, although not always, with a chinstrap.
Slouch hat
Australia and New Zealand have had various models of slouch hat as standard issue headwear since the late Victorian period.
Slouch hat
Hobo bags are made out of soft, flexible materials and tend to slump, or slouch, when set down.
Hobo bag
The shape and material of cork hats varies but, typically, they are similar to a slouch hat.
Cork hat
The Terai hat is a type of slouch hat associated with the Gurkhas and named after the Terai region in Nepal.
Terai hat

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the laxus family

relax

slouch — used about once every 5,283 pages · #9,890 · point at the bar for the others

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