idleness

plural idlenesses

1. countableuncountableThe state of being idle; inactivity.

   Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion, […].

   1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Immoderate Exercise a cause, and how. Solitariness, Idleness”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, Gutenberg edition, Project Gutenberg, published 2004, partition 1, section 2, member 2, subsection 6

2. countableuncountableThe state of being indolent; indolence.

   1 more example

   For either they be puffed vp vvith pride, / Or fraught vvith enuie that their galls do ſvvell, / Or they their dayes to ydleneſſe diuide, / Or drovvnded lie in pleaſures vvaſtefull vvell, / In vvhich like Moldvvarps [i.e., moles] nouſling ſtill they lurke, / Vnmyndfull of chiefe parts of manlineſſe, / And do themſelues for vvant of other vvorke, / Vaine votaries of laeſie loue profeſſe, […]

   1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, signature D3, verso

3. countableuncountableGroundlessness; worthlessness; triviality; vanity; frivolity.