Sloth is laziness, especially with regard to work. Another word for sloth. Find more ways to say sloth, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. Sloths are Xenarthran mammals from Central and South America. They are part of the order Pilosa. There are two families of sloths: two-toed sloth and three-toed sloth. Most scientists call these two families the Folivora, while some call them the Phyllophaga. Sloth translation in English-Tagalog dictionary. Found 87 sentences matching phrase 'sloth'.Found in 2 ms.

1. Sloth Definition Synonym
2. Sloth Definition Dictionary
3. Sloth Definition Dictionary

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Sloth, (suborder Phyllophaga), tree-dwelling mammal noted for its slowness of movement. All five living species are limited to the lowland tropical forests of South and Central America, where they can be found high in the forest canopy sunning, resting, or feeding on leaves. Although two-toed sloths (family Megalonychidae) are capable of climbing and positioning themselves vertically, they spend almost all of their time hanging horizontally, using their large hooklike extremities to move along branches and vines. Three-toed sloths (family Bradypodidae) move in the same way but often sit in the forks of trees rather than hanging from branches.

What kind of animal is a sloth?

Sloths are mammals. They are part of the order Pilosa, which is also home to anteaters. Together with armadillos, sloths and anteaters form the magnorder Xenarthra.

How many types of sloths are there?

A total of five species of sloths exist: the pygmy three-toed sloth, the maned sloth, the pale-throated three-toed sloth, the brown-throated three-toed sloth, and Linnaeus's two-toed sloth. All sloths are either two-toed or three-toed.

Where do sloths live?

Sloths live in the lowland tropical areas of South and Central America. They spend most of their life in the forest canopy. Two-toed sloths tend to hang horizontally from branches, while three-toed sloths often sit in the forks of trees.

What do sloths eat?

Sloths are omnivores. Because they spend most of their time in trees, they like to munch on leaves, twigs, flowers, and other foliage, though some species may eat insects and other small animals.

Why are sloths so slow?

Sloths are slow because of their diet and metabolic rate. They eat a low-calorie diet consisting exclusively of plants, and they metabolize at a rate that is only 40–45 percent of what is expected for mammals of their weight. Sloths must move slowly to conserve energy.

Sloths have long legs, stumpy tails, and rounded heads with inconspicuous ears. Although they possess colour vision, sloths’ eyesight and hearing are not very acute; orientation is mainly by touch. The limbs are adapted for suspending the body rather than supporting it. As a result, sloths are completely helpless on the ground unless there is something to grasp. Even then, they are able only to drag themselves along with their claws. They are surprisingly good swimmers. Generally nocturnal, sloths are solitary and are aggressive toward others of the same sex.

Sloths have large multichambered stomachs and an ability to tolerate strong chemicals from the foliage they eat. The leafy food is digested slowly; a fermenting meal may take up to a week to process. The stomach is constantly filled, its contents making up about 30 percent of the sloth’s weight. Sloths descend to the ground at approximately six-day intervals to urinate and defecate (see Sidebar: A moving habitat). Physiologically, sloths are heterothermic—that is, they have imperfect control over their body temperature. Normally ranging between 25 and 35 °C (77 and 95 °F), body temperature may drop to as low as 20 °C (68 °F). At this temperature the animals become torpid. Although heterothermicity makes sloths very sensitive to temperature change, they have thick skin and are able to withstand severe injuries.

All sloths were formerly classified in the same family (Bradypodidae), but two-toed sloths have been found to be so different from three-toed sloths that they are now classified in a separate family (Megalonychidae).

Three-toed sloths

The three-toed sloth (family Bradypodidae) is also called the ai in Latin America because of the high-pitched cry it produces when agitated. All four species belong to the same genus, Bradypus, and the coloration of their short facial hair bestows them with a perpetually smiling expression. The brown-throated three-toed sloth (B. variegatus) occurs in Central and South America from Honduras to northern Argentina; the pale-throated three-toed sloth (B. tridactylus) is found in northern South America; the maned sloth (B. torquatus) is restricted to the small Atlantic forest of southeastern Brazil; and the pygmy three-toed sloth (B. pygmaeus) inhabits the Isla Escudo de Veraguas, a small Caribbean island off the northwestern coast of Panama.

Although most mammals have seven neck vertebrae, three-toed sloths have eight or nine, which permits them to turn their heads through a 270° arc. The teeth are simple pegs, and the upper front pair are smaller than the others; incisor and true canine teeth are lacking. Adults weigh only about 4 kg (8.8 pounds), and the young weigh less than 1 kg (2.2 pounds), possibly as little as 150–250 grams (about 5–9 ounces) at birth. (The birth weight of B. torquatus, for example, is only 300 grams [about 11 ounces].) The head and body length of three-toed sloths averages 58 cm (23 inches), and the tail is short, round, and movable. The forelimbs are 50 percent longer than the hind limbs; all four feet have three long, curved sharp claws. Sloths’ coloration makes them difficult to spot, even though they are very common in some areas. The outer layer of shaggy long hair is pale brown to gray and covers a short, dense coat of black-and-white underfur. The outer hairs have many cracks, perhaps caused by the algae living there. The algae give the animals a greenish tinge, especially during the rainy season. Sexes look alike in the maned sloth, but in the other species males have a large patch (speculum) in the middle of the back that lacks overhair, thus revealing the black dorsal stripe and bordering white underfur, which is sometimes stained yellow to orange. The maned sloth gets its name from the long black hair on the back of its head and neck.

Sloth Definition Synonym

Three-toed sloths, although mainly nocturnal, may be active day or night but spend only about 10 percent of their time moving at all. They sleep either perched in the fork of a tree or hanging from a branch, with all four feet bunched together and the head tucked in on the chest. In this posture the sloth resembles a clump of dead leaves, so inconspicuous that it was once thought these animals ate only the leaves of cecropia trees because in other trees it went undetected. Research has since shown that they eat the foliage of a wide variety of other trees and vines. Locating food by touch and smell, the sloth feeds by hooking a branch with its claws and pulling it to its mouth. Sloths’ slow movements and mainly nocturnal habits generally do not attract the attention of predators such as jaguars and harpy eagles. Normally, three-toed sloths are silent and docile, but if disturbed they can strike out furiously with the sharp foreclaws.

Reproduction is seasonal in the brown- and pale-throated species; the maned sloth may breed throughout the year. Reproduction in pygmy three-toed sloths, however, has not yet been observed. A single young is born after less than six months’ gestation. Newborn sloths cling to the mother’s abdomen and remain with the mother until at least five months of age. Three-toed sloths are so difficult to maintain in captivity that little is known about their breeding behaviour and other aspects of their life history.

noun

Sloth Definition Dictionary

• 1mass nounReluctance to work or make an effort; laziness.

  ‘he should overcome his natural sloth and complacency’

  • ‘It seems to be intrinsic to domestic politics of every variety that a certain dismal downward trend emerges, characterized by sloth, despondency and complacency.’
  • ‘Once again the drawbacks to living a life of laziness and sloth became apparent.’
  • ‘Their lack of mathematical acumen is taken by parents and teachers as evidence of laziness, of sloth.’
  • ‘I wouldn't like to use the term gradual laziness to describe the deterioration my work ethic - not when words like indolence, sloth and bone-idleness will do so much better.’
  • ‘It's ridiculous that I've got one of the largest cultural cities in the world to the south of me, lots of which it costs relatively little to see and I let sloth and lethargy stop me from seeing it.’
  • ‘‘It's about idleness and sloth, and not getting out there and bringing in fresh, exciting stories,’ he says.’
  • ‘Their suspicions focussed particularly on what Cornwallis and his kind characterized as sloth and desertion.’
  • ‘The wandering soul has countless names, many of them suggestive of sloth and indolence.’
  • ‘The long, hot dusty afternoons, where time hangs still, and dry leaves fly in sad whirls before collapsing to the ground, the inertia and sloth that drives even the most energetic into a huddle, the sense of despair.’
  • ‘When does the diagnosis become lethargy or sloth?’
  • ‘Reverend Andy said he wasn't surprised that my zeal of the previous week had been replaced by sloth and apathy.’
  • ‘In the triumph of Royalist counter-revolution Milton saw the dangers of political passivity, of ideological sloth.’
  • ‘The law was against loitering, though it may as well have been against idleness and sloth.’
  • ‘I firmly believe that sloth and indolence are much kinder to the environment than greed and ambition.’
  • ‘Call it lethargy, call it ennui, call it plain, honest to goodness sloth, but I had yet to stir my bones and make the trek north.’
  • ‘However, I was by now committed to a day of gluttony and sloth, and so spent the afternoon eating chocolate and watching ‘reality’ tv.’
  • ‘But can't we have a little listlessness in our lives, some sloth, a dollop or two of drowsiness?’
  • ‘My main moral failings have always centered on greed and sloth.’
  • ‘The original ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ are commonly regarded as greed, gluttony, envy, sloth, pride, lust and wrath. search news’
  • ‘Night after night Shaun drags her to the neighbourhood pub, the Winchester, to suck back pints with his best friend Ed, the poster boy for sloth and neglect.’

  laziness, idleness, indolence, slothfulness, inactivity, inertia, sluggishness, apathy, accidie, listlessness, lassitude, passivity, lethargy, languor, torpidity, slowness, heaviness, dullness, shiftlessness

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• 2A slow-moving tropical American mammal that hangs upside down from the branches of trees using its long limbs and hooked claws.

  Families Bradypodidae (three species of three-toed sloth in genus Bradypus) and Megalonychidae (two species of two-toed sloth in genus Choloepus), order Xenarthra (or Edentata). See also ground sloth

  ‘Peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, armadillos, sloths, coatis, and others are around but hard to see.’

  • ‘In South America, a group known as the Xenarthrans developed, today represented by the anteaters, sloths and armadillos.’
  • ‘Monkeys, tapirs, sloths, anteaters, and bats abound, all in an area the size of West Virginia.’
  • ‘Dogs, rhinoceroses, tree sloths, horses, and whales are placentals.’
  • ‘The sloths and armadillos are rather odd mammals characteristic of South America.’
  • ‘The group currently includes armadillos, 2-toed sloths, 3-toed sloths, and anteaters, placed in four families containing 29 species.’
  • ‘South America was also home to living species of armadillos and sloths.’
  • ‘The cerebellum is nearly the same fraction of the brain in sloths and cats, sheep, manatees and antelopes but many fold bigger in some elasmobranch species than in others.’
  • ‘Saber-toothed cats, mastodons, giant sloths, woolly rhinos, and many other big, shaggy mammals are widely thought to have died out around the end of the last ice age, some 10,500 years ago.’
  • ‘This category includes three very different groups of animals: the armadillos, the ant-eaters, and the sloths.’
  • ‘They come down trees head-first like squirrels; stand on their hind legs balancing on their tails like kangaroos; and crawl and hang upside-down in the canopy like sloths.’
  • ‘He doesn't like to hang on trees with the other sloths.’
  • ‘You can walk through a tropical jungle and admire parrots, poison tree frogs and sloths in the trees and piranhas in the water beneath, or watch beluga whales and sea otters through the windows of large tanks in the Canadian Arctic display.’
  • ‘The first has been likened to tree sloths and the second compared to koala bears.’
  • ‘This night, the turtle was laying her eggs on a low shelf of sand near a line of dune scrub and low palms, not far from dense jungle that is home to the deadly fer-de-lance snake, caimans, howler monkeys and sloths.’
  • ‘Two toed sloths are perhaps more heterothermic than any other mammal.’
  • ‘The woolly rhinos and cave bears of Europe and Asia, the saber-toothed cats, the mastodons and giant sloths of North and South America - could some of these have made it through too?’
  • ‘But on the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola - shared today by modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic - sloths survived until about 4,400 years ago.’
  • ‘Three-toed sloths weigh 3-5 kg; their bodies run around 0.5 m in length.’
  • ‘But the journey, which leads to the discovery of shards of ancient pottery and the bones of extinct sloths, makes for a story of great suspense.’

• 3rare A group of bears.

  • ‘Where food is plentiful, like at a salmon stream, you will often see a sloth of bears.’
  • ‘'Isn't thirteen a large number for a sloth of bears?' 'It certainly is,' the hunter answered, 'six is as many as I ever saw together.'’
  • ‘The food that bears eat is not often found in large quantities and would not be enough to feed a group, or sloth, of bears.’

Sloth Definition Dictionary