dawdle
to waste time; idle; trifle; loiter: Stop dawdling and help me with these packages!
to move slowly, languidly, or dilatorily; saunter.
to waste (time) by or as if by trifling (usually followed by away): He dawdled away the whole morning.
Origin of dawdle
1synonym study For dawdle
Other words for dawdle
Other words from dawdle
- dawdler, noun
- daw·dling·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use dawdle in a sentence
But he knows that he is just a dawdler compared to Chomsky, the great big mindbender.
He had been called a dawdler and a trifler and a do-nothing.
Under Handicap | Jackson GregoryThe pinch of necessity had come at last: the world no longer offered him the life of an elegant dawdler.
Washington Irving | Henry W. BoyntonIndeed, I was a confirmed dawdler almost before I was able to think or act for myself.
Parkhurst Boys | Talbot Baines ReedAnd a weakling, a dawdler like himself, must reply to a hero like that!
The Torrent | Vicente Blasco Ibaez
You were never meant to become a cynical dawdler in a country house.
The Doctor's Wife | M. E. Braddon
British Dictionary definitions for dawdle
/ (ˈdɔːdəl) /
(intr) to be slow or lag behind
(when tr, often foll by away) to waste (time); trifle
Origin of dawdle
1Derived forms of dawdle
- dawdler, noun
- dawdlingly, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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