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Idle   /ˈaɪdəl/   Listen
adjective
Idle  adj.  (compar. idler; superl. idlest)  
1.
Of no account; useless; vain; trifling; unprofitable; thoughtless; silly; barren. "Deserts idle." "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." "Down their idle weapons dropped." "This idle story became important."
2.
Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours. "The idle spear and shield were high uphing."
3.
Not employed; unoccupied with business; inactive; doing nothing; as, idle workmen. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?"
4.
Given rest and ease; averse to labor or employment; lazy; slothful; as, an idle fellow.
5.
Light-headed; foolish. (Obs.)
Idle pulley (Mach.), a pulley that rests upon a belt to tighten it; a pulley that only guides a belt and is not used to transmit power.
Idle wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel placed between two others, to transfer motion from one to the other without changing the direction of revolution.
In idle, in vain. (Obs.) "God saith, thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in idle."
Synonyms: Unoccupied; unemployed; vacant; inactive; indolent; sluggish; slothful; useless; ineffectual; futile; frivolous; vain; trifling; unprofitable; unimportant. Idle, Indolent, Lazy. A propensity to inaction is expressed by each of these words; they differ in the cause and degree of this characteristic. Indolent denotes an habitual love to ease, a settled dislike of movement or effort; idle is opposed to busy, and denotes a dislike of continuous exertion. Lazy is a stronger and more contemptuous term than indolent.


verb
Idle  v. t.  To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume; often followed by away; as, to idle away an hour a day.


Idle  v. i.  (past & past part. idled; pres. part. idling)  To lose or spend time in inaction, or without being employed in business.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books



... Christianity, and if all three had conspired to draw together into one the various temperaments and tendencies of the German Americans in the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace, may seem like an idle historical conjecture, but the question is not without practical interest to-day. Perhaps the Moravians would have been the better for being ballasted with the weighty theologies and the conservative temper of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... personal evidence to—prosecute my campaign," said Fyles quickly. "As you said just now, we are not idle." ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... bears his gonfaloun; There too Gerin and Geriers are found. Where they are found, is seen a mighty crowd, Fifteen thousand, come out of France the Douce. On white carpets those knights have sate them down, At the game-boards to pass an idle hour;— Chequers the old, for wisdom most renowned, While fence the young and lusty bachelours. Beneath a pine, in eglantine embow'red, l Stands a fald-stool, fashioned of gold throughout; There sits the King, that holds Douce France in pow'r; White is his beard, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... Shakespearian drama, a force that crushes and dissolves the resisting materials into their elements, and recombines or fuses them into a new substance, is a force so different in kind from Jonson's, that it would of course be idle to attempt an estimate of its superiority in degree. And in regard to those minor dramatists who will be the subjects of the present paper, if they fall below Jonson in general ability, they nearly all afford scenes and passages superior to his best in depth of passion, vigor of imagination, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge could be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all impressions had fled, save those of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green


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