slow coach
noun phrase

- a slow person

(Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary)

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WORD ORIGIN

Slow coach is used in informal British English speech to describe someone who seems to be moving too slowly. It refers to a coach or train that runs very slowly and stops in every little town. Charles Dickens was one of the first to use it as a metaphor when he applied it to Mr. Pickwick. Later, in Martin Chuuzlewit, one of Dicken's lesser-known novels, Mr. Pecksniff comments:

"Some of us are slow coaches, some of us are fast coaches."

The American variant is "slowpoke." It's not clear where "poke" comes from, but it may allude to the slow movement of a poke horse, where poke refers to packs or bags carried by the horse (the bag sense of poke links to the French "poche," pocket).

Some scientists are suggesting that contrary to the Hollywood image of the Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur as fast and nimble, it was actually a slow coach. Two biomechanical specialists from the University of California at Berkeley calculated that a 6-tonne T. rex couldn't have carried enough leg muscle to break into a run. Instead it could only walk at a respectable 5 metres per second, just half the top speed clocked for an elephant or a top human sprinter.

(sources: Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address by Leslie Dunkling, New Scientist magazine)

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SYNONYMS

dawdler, dilly-dallyer, idler, laggard, plodder, procrastinator, slug, sluggard, snail, straggler

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today:

"Jim is such a SLOW COACH. We need to leave without him, before we miss the bus!"