lounge lizard

plural lounge lizards · alternative lounge-lizard

1. Jazz-age or flapper slangAn idler or pleasure-seeker; a person who spends considerable time loitering in bars and cocktail lounges.

   I certainly don't advocate trying to copy some Las Vegas lounge lizard.

   1985 July 13, net.singles

   3 more examples

   There is at least a tinge of truth in that picture of Southern England as one enormous Brighton inhabited by lounge-lizards.

   1937, George Orwell, chapter 7, in The Road to Wigan Pier

   With his panther glide and lounge-lizard eyes, Fishburne has become one of film's most mesmerizing stars.

   1995 January 20, The Washington Post,

   Someone should pull together a major movie for this actor, because he’s great at playing heels with a vagrant streak of decency—say, a lounge lizard with feelings, an uncomfortably adulterous husband.

   2003 March 17, The New Yorker,

2. A lounge singer, especially in Las Vegas.

   Wayne Newton says he has one request: Never call an entertainer a "lounge lizard."

   1999, Nevada Department of Economic Developmenthttps://books.google.com/books?id=PELZHXcIZoMC

   3 more examples

   A second later, funky beats and distorted guitars kicked in, and then quirky hip-hop-style vocals with a country-and-Western lounge-lizard overlay.

   2002 October 14, The New Yorker,

   The distorted phrasing feels almost hokey, in the vein of what we typically think of as Vegas lounge-lizard style, quick talk-sing phrasing punctuated by sustained soaring notes.

   2014, Tara Murtha, Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe

   Ross had expected to find a hungover Vegas lounge lizard; instead, he witnessed a surprising demonstration of Frank [Sinatra] at the peak of his powers.

   2015, James Kaplan, Sinatra: The Chairman

3. slangA person who spends a lot of time sitting or lying down, often watching television, eating snacks or drinking alcohol.

   Watch only thirty to ninety minutes of TV a day, so people don't think you're a lounge lizard, a couch potato, or a pet rock.

   1994, Marguerite Kelly, Marguerite Kelly's Family Almanac, page 216

   3 more examples

   Social television is a direct challenge to the idea that television is an anti-social, lower-class, lounge-lizard, couch surfing, domestic, household activity.

   2010, Gerard Goggin, Global Mobile Media, page 95

   Mort, who was still welded to the sofa, spoke without looking up as he needed to concentrate on rolling a cigarette. Lounge lizard? Couch potato? Perish the thought!

   2012, Benny Goodman, Sweetest Moments Finest Hours, page 28

   A lounge lizard is a phrase meaning that someone is lazy, like a lizard, because the person is sitting on a couch or armchair.

   [2017, Martina Nicolls, Similar but Different in the Animal Kingdom, page 382

   Synonyms: couch potato, bum, couch potato, dawdler, deadbeat, dogfucker, do-naught, do-nothing