Lombard fever, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Lombard fever n.

[dial. lomber, to idle. The OED links the term to dial. fever-lurden, fever-lurgan, fever-lurgy, fever-largie, all meaning the same]

idleness, indolence, laziness, ‘the idles’ (Grose, 1785).

1670		J. Ray Proverbs 215: He’s sick of the Lombard feaver: or of the idles.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Lombard fever, sick of a lombard fever. i.e. of the idles.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].