懶 / 懒
laan⁵
The Cantonese word for "lazy" is 懶 / 懒 (laan⁵).
懶 / 懒 is an adjective used to describe someone who is unwilling to work. To describe someone as "very lazy", you can add the adverb 好 (hou2) before the adjective, resulting in 好懶.
Meaning: unwilling to work (adj)
How does it change in a sentence?
You can combine 懶 / 懒 with 人 (jan4, person) to create the noun 懶人, which means "a lazy person".
How do you pronounce it?
laan⁵
Did you know?
- In Cantonese, 'laziness' can be colloquially expressed through the phrase 懶音 (laan5 jam1), which refers to 'lazy sounds' or a speaker's tendency to skip pronunciations or omit final consonants.
- While 懶 describes a character trait, if you want to say someone is 'being lazy' or 'slacking off' right now, you might use 偷懶 (tau1 laan5), which literally translates to 'stealing laziness'.
- While 'lazy' is often negative in English, using 懶 to describe a 'lazy' way of doing something can sometimes imply a clever shortcut or an efficient hack.
Examples in context
- 佢好懶散He is very lazy.
- 佢非常懶惰He is extremely lazy.
- 佢又再偷懶He is slacking off again.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “lazy” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
