at loose ends

1. In an unsettled or uncertain situation. For example, This whole visit has left me feeling restless, constantly at loose ends, or Jane couldn't find a job this year and so is at loose ends for the summer. [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

But now the three Incorrigible children were cross and at loose ends, a dangerous combination that could easily tempt any young person to misbehave, never mind three siblings who had been raised in a forest by wolves and were thus especially prone to mischief.

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Hard as it is to fathom, McCartney has had pangs of doubt concerning his art and career, never more so than in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles’ breakup in 1970, when he found himself at loose ends, unsure of how to follow up the most spectacular first act in show business history.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

At loose ends and broke, Maggie, and the reader, are then swept into a strange adventure when a successful cosmetic surgeon named Evan Barlow approaches her with an offer to wipe out her family’s debts in exchange for Maggie committing to perform surgery for a client in Russia who is willing to pay her millions.

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While a few extra characters are left at loose ends and therefore feel extraneous, those aren’t necessary for the communication of the central ideas of class warfare and hypocrisy.

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So much so that when Lourdes Lopez, the director of Miami City Ballet, reached out to him, eager to help a Ukrainian dancer at loose ends, he hesitated.

Read more on New York Times