Definition of "sluggish"

[I]f he leaves the School poſſeſs'd of a ſluggiſh indolent Diſpoſition, and of Learning rather forc'd upon him than choſen, it is probable he will forget what he brought thence; but if he be active, emulous and aſpiring, he will certainly find Time for Reading and Thinking; for tho' it be a homely, it is a true Saying, that where there is a Will, there is a Way.

1724, Pharmacopolæ Justificati: Or, Apothecaries Vindicated from the Imputation of Ignorance. […], London: […] J. Roberts, […], page 6

And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.

c. 1874, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ovid in Exile

He helps us to understand the insignificant points which mark the rapid undercurrents of the seemingly sluggish soul of Khalid.

1910 January 12, Ameen Rihani, “On the Wharf of Enchantment”, in The Book of Khalid, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published October 1911, book the first (In the Exchange), page 34

Vp thou tame River, wake; / And from the liquid limbes this ſlumber ſhake: / Thou drownſ't thy ſelfe in inofficious ſleepe; / And theſe thy ſluggish waters ſeeme to creepe, / Rather than flow.

1604 March 25 (first performance; Gregorian calendar; published 1604), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Part of the Kings Entertainment in Passing to His Coronation [The Coronation Triumph]”, in The Workes of Ben Jonson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, page 850

We float upon a sluggish stream,We ride no rapids mad,While life is all a tempered dreamAnd every joy half sad.

1913, Paul Laurence Dunbar, At Sunset Time

[T]he stock of capital is necessarily a sluggish time series, while output is capable of making wide swings in short intervals[.]

1970, Robert M. Solow, Growth Theory: An Exposition, Oxford University Press, page 3

Matter, being impotent, sluggish, and inactive, hath no power to stir or move itself.

1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies

After an initial bounce back, the post-Covid Chinese economy has turned sluggish. Its property market - once a key driver of growth - is now mired in a credit crisis, exacerbating a domestic "debt bomb" that has ballooned from years of borrowing by local government and state-owned enterprises.

2023 November 15, Tessa Wong, “Xi Jinping arrives in US as his Chinese Dream sputters”, in BBC‎