These words refer to extremely dull, unresponsive dull, unresponsive or inactive states due to laziness, sluggish health or mental depression. Classically one of the seven deadly sins, sloth stresses extreme inaction due to laziness, a state amenable to a simple effort of the will. The word is sharp in its disapproval and suggests the unpleasant concomitants of sloppiness, untidiness or uncleanliness: filthy, dishevelled rooms that gave eloquent testimony to his life of sloth and debauchery. Unlike sloth , torpor may be applied to animals, people or in fact to anything lying quiescent. Also, the word does not necessarily suggest a voluntary condition and is consequently less disapproving. Torpor does point to a more lasting or deep-seated state near to that of sleep or hibernation and may suggest an unbroken outward uneventfulness: a torpor in which he merely stared out the window for days on end.

Accidie (or acedia ), now obsolete, once added to the connotations of the previous pair the suggestion of a state of mental unresponsiveness. Accidie sometimes replaced sloth in lists of the seven deadly sins, but the word became more widely thought of as referring to a state of mental depression, implying a despair so profound that no action or attitude is thought possible or desirable. Apathy is a much more informal substitute for this use, suggesting emotionless unresponsiveness that may stem from discouragement or low morale: looking upon his parents?quarrels with growing pessimism and apathy . Often the word is used sociologically to refer to a limp, passive attitude towards injustice among groups of people: slum children who face their constricted future with understandable apathy ; the apathy of the German middle classes when faced with the rise of Hitler.

Anomie is specifically used in a sociological context to refer to a widespread social apathy that results in alienation, breakdowns in communication, hostility and the weakening of norms of conduct: the new delinquency among children of well-to-do parents, reflecting a wide-spread anomie among the affluent. Sometimes the word can suggest a breakdown of norms that sets the stage for chaotic or anarchic violence; in this sense, its suggestion of action puts it in sharp contrast with the other words here. By comparison, the more general indolence is limited to no particular technical context, and refers strictly to an aversion to exertion or work. While this could conceivably give the word a sociological context, more often it is used as a more formal substitute for simple laziness, emphasizing a deliberately chosen state of inactivity: the pampered indolence of the Edwardian gentry. But the word need not always be disapproving: a glorious week of indolence at the beach.

The remaining pair of words are both highly formal and technical terms from psychiatry. Both describe extremely withdrawn states of mental unresponsiveness. Autism at its most general can indicate a tendency towards daydreaming and introspection; at its most concrete it is used specifically to describe an extreme withdrawal in children that retards or destroys the development of such normal functions as speech: the years of intensive face-to-face effort involved in curing a single case of autism . Catatonia indicates a similar kind of extreme withdrawal in schizophrenic adults in which the psychosis takes the from of apathy , complete passivity and inability to initiate the simplest actions: patients who, afflicted with catatonia , sit in the same uncomfortable positions for hours rather than shifting to a more comfortable posture.