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
This is a grim continuum on which to exist, skating between the poles of high-achieving hustler and dissolute layabout.
From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2024
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
"Suppose I do know?" he urged, tightening a little the arm that layabout her.
From The Story of Julia Page by Norris, Kathleen Thompson
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.
