The revolving platforms that sit in the centre of a dinner table and confer on guests the godlike power of spinning distant dainties into an orbit closer to their own plates have been known as lazy Susans since about 1917. The name is whimsical in origin, alluding to how the device obviates the need for indolent guests to go to the trouble of asking one another to pass a desired item. The words that make up the name lazy Susan do, however, have real etymologies: Susan derives from the Hebrew word for lily and was introduced to English through the Old Testament; lazy probably derives from the German lasich, meaning lazy or loose, and was not adopted by English until the middle of the sixteenth century. Before that time, you could be slack, slothful, and idle, but not lazy.