LAGGARDS Synonyms: 28 Similar and Opposite Words

laggards

noun

plural of laggard

as in snails

someone who moves slowly or more slowly than others tried to spur on the laggards at the back of the line during the hike

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of laggards Those factors still matter, but as demand continues to outpace production capacity, another capability will increasingly separate industry leaders from laggards—the ability to execute more production with the same resources. — Naveen Poonian, Forbes.com, 20 Oct. 2026 Namely, many of these laggards—including Gemini, Bullish and BitGo—are offering commodity services in a hyper competitive market, and don’t have the ability to scale or provide much in the way of extra value. — Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 19 Oct. 2026 While tech faltered, the market rotated into defensive consumer staples like Kimberly-Clark , healthcare like Eli Lilly and Cardinal Health , and other year-to-date laggards. — Jeff Marks, CNBC, 16 Oct. 2026 Clear rules can help achieve that by leveling the playing field between sustainability leaders and laggards, MacGilp said. — Jasmin Malik Chua, Footwear News, 25 Sep. 2026 Companies in the information technology sector were among the biggest laggards. — Steve Kopack, NBC news, 10 Sep. 2026 Others risk losing ground as AI gets trapped in pilots that never scale, widening the performance gap between early adopters and laggards – and creating a new digital divide inside every industry. — Nigel Vaz, Time, 20 July 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for laggards

Noun

Holed up in her brutalist home in the Swiss alps with her pet snails, she is approached by a handsome young publisher from New York (Alden Ehrenreich) with the impossible task of convincing her to write another book in her Ripley series.

— Alex Jhamb Burns, Vogue, 21 Oct. 2026
The researchers found a population deep in a Japanese mountain valley where left- and right-coiling snails can mate and exchange genes.

— Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 17 Oct. 2026

Definition of snails

Noun

The daffodils here were almost finished, apart from one little patch of stragglers still flowering on heroically against the odds.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 15 Sep. 2026
Swarms or stragglers are most likely to be spotted near the Great Lakes shorelines because the lakes help funnel their routes.

— Sarah Moore, Freep.com, 14 Sep. 2026

Definition of stragglers

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laggardly

laggards

lagged

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“Laggards.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/laggards. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of laggards

noun

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