Moving or functioning slowly, lacking energy or responsiveness. Describes something that reacts or operates with reduced speed or vigor.
Formed from 'slug' (originally meaning a slow-moving person, from Middle English 'slugge' meaning lazy person) plus the suffix '-ish' meaning 'having the character of'. The connection to the gastropod slug came later, by association with slowness.
Interestingly, the word 'slug' originally referred to a lazy person before it was applied to the slow-moving mollusk. The gastropod got its name because people saw it as the embodiment of sluggishness, making this a rare case where an animal was named after a human trait rather than the reverse.
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