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Idler   /ˈaɪdələr/  /ˈaɪdlər/   Listen
noun
Idler  n.  
1.
One who idles; one who spends his time in inaction; a lazy person; a sluggard.
2.
(Naut.) One who has constant day duties on board ship, and keeps no regular watch.
3.
(Mach.) An idle wheel or pulley. See under Idle.



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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idler" Quotes from Famous Books



... would walk toward him, frightened and helpless until his arms closed about her. It was entirely a game to him. There were days, when Marion was trying, or the work of his department was nagging him, when he scarcely noticed her at all. But again the mischief in him, the idler, the newly awakened hunting male, took him to her with arms outheld and the look of triumph in his eyes that ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... lots each day to "rid up" Mr. Silt's living-room, which was behind the store, the chambers being overhead. She was gone home long before he put out the store lights and turned out the last lingering idler, for Cap'n Abe preferred to cook for himself. He declared the Widow Gallup did not know how to make a decent chowder, anyway; and as for lobscouse, or the proper frying of a mess of "blood-ends," she ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... Among the idler parts of Nibelungen discussions perhaps the idlest are the attempts made by partisans of Icelandic and German literature respectively to exalt or depress these two handlings, each in comparison with the other. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... exercised in the selection of subjects; which, for ourselves, we would have to illustrate the wisdom and benevolence of Parliament. How beautifully would several of the Duke of WELLINGTON'S speeches paint! For instance, his portrait of a famishing Englishman, the drunkard and the idler, no other man (according to his grace) famishing in England! And then the Duke's view of the shops of butchers, and poulterers, and bakers—all in the Dutch style—by which his grace has lately proved, that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... licence. Where his own purse and credit are not threatened, he will do the honours of his village generously. Any artist is made welcome, through whatever medium he may seek expression; science is respected; even the idler, if he prove, as he so rarely does, a gentleman, will soon begin to find himself at home. And when that essentially modern creature, the English or American girl-student, began to walk calmly into his favourite inns as if into a drawing-room at ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson


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