layabout
Americannoun
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of layabout
1930–35; noun use of verb phrase lay about, nonstandard variant of lie about
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To the book’s heartsick narrator, Louise Brown, the man who embodies those old-fashioned virtues is Claude Collier, the 27-year-old layabout scion of an aristocratic New Orleans clan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
Katie sees Rachel as little more than a useless layabout waiting to claim the apartment, even though Rachel had been the live-in caregiver before things turned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2024
“And the same guy played Sonic in both shows,” Scott Pilgrim, the doofy 23-year-old layabout of “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off,” shares, unprompted, to his love interest, Ramona Flowers.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2023
Roman is a layabout who wastes what may be natural intelligence, and seems not to know what his actual job is, much less how to handle the basic functions of it.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2019
The supervisor is sitting extremely comfortably with his legs crossed and his arm hanging over the backrest here like some layabout.
From The Trial by Wyllie, David
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
