dawdle

present singular third person dawdles · participle present dawdling · participle past dawdled · past dawdled · first person past singular dawdled · archaic present second person singular dawdlest · past second person singular dawdled · archaic past second person singular dawdledst · present singular third person dawdles · archaic present singular third person dawdleth · past singular third person dawdled · past plural dawdled · past subjunctive dawdled · participle present dawdling · participle past dawdled · alternative daudle

1. transitiveChiefly followed by away: to spend (time) without haste or purpose.First known use late 18th c.

   to dawdle away the whole morning

   1 more example

   [M]anaging to live on terms with both / Opposing potentates, the Power and you, / Crowned with success, but dawdle out my days / In exile here at Clairvaux, with mock love, […]

   1873 January 23, Robert Browning, “Part IV”, in Red Cotton Night-Cap Country: Or Turf and Towers, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 230–231

   Synonyms: fiddle away

2. intransitiveTo spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time.First known use mid 17th c. (probably dialectal); in general use from late 18th c.

   However all [Wayne] Hennessey's good work went to waste on 52 minutes when he dawdled on the ball.

   2011 October 29, Neil Johnston, “Norwich 3 – 3 Blackburn”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 03 Feb 2023

   5 more examples

   Tell him, if he'll call on me, and davvdle over a diſh of tea in an afternoon, I ſhall take it kind.

   1791, James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, “[1781]”, in James Boswell, editor, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], volume II, London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 405

   Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his successful love; for Mrs. Bennett, having dawdled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open the door and with quick step pass he towards the staircase, than she entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection.

   1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XX, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 255

   You all know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt of conscience about that, I suppose?

   1866, John Ruskin, “Crystal Virtues”, in The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 90

   There are no idlers here; the only loungers are those who have undertaken for hire to do other people's business, and the hireling dawdleth because he is an hireling. What is his master's business to him? he neither knows its importance nor yet cares he if it be neglected.

   1888, [Julia Clara Byrne], chapter X, in De Omnibus Rebus: An Old Man’s Discursive Ramblings on the Road of Everyday Life […], John C. Nimmo […], →OCLC, pages 263–264

   White creature wholly white, thou winter-coloured imp, tongue-shaped and slippery, 'wall-streak' and 'rubbish of the floor,' that livest 'neath timbers of a house, that dawdlest underneath the nook, […]

   1898, John Abercromby, “Charms of the East Finns, Russians, Letts, etc.”, in The Pre- and Proto-historic Finns: Both Eastern and Western with the Magic Songs of the West Finns, volume II, London: David Nutt […], →OCLC, § 86 (Against the Cow-house Snake), subsection b, page 172

   Synonyms: dally, dilly-dally, take one's time, arse about, arse around, bludge, bum around, cabbage

3. intransitiveTo move or walk lackadaisically.

   If you dawdle on your daily walk, you won’t get as much exercise.

   3 more examples

   [W]e, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and down Pall Mall, and peep into the coaches as they drive up with the great folks in their feathers— […]

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In which the Reader is Introduced to the Very Best of Company”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 427

   […] I began to wonder if this Arthur were really the same lad she used to pet and think so much of when he came down to Leatherhead and dawdled with my Lady and Bell along the Surrey lanes of an evening.

   1872, William Black, “Saved!”, in The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 267

   Blessed are the drivers who dawdleth not in the fast lane.

   2005, Charles Manley Brown, “Laws and Regulations”, in Thou Shalt Not Take Thyself too … Seriously: The Lighter Side of the Golden Years, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 68

   Synonyms: loiter, idle

plural dawdles

1. An act of spending time idly and unfruitfully; a dawdling.
2. An act of moving or walking lackadaisically, a dawdling; a leisurely or slow walk or other journey.

   For many the journey home from school was not a walk but a ‘dawdle’: it was an everyday experience that added meaning to their lives.

   2017, Colin G. Pooley, Jean Turnbull, Mags Adams, “Travelling to School”, in A Mobile Century?: Changes in Everyday Mobility in Britain in the Twentieth Century, Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, →ISBN

3. Synonym of dawdler (“a person who dawdles or idles”).

   Lord, I have ſuch a deal to do, I ſhall ſcarce have time to ſlip on my Italian luteſting.—VVhere is this davvdle of a houſekeeper?

   1766, George Colman, David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, a Comedy. […], London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […]; R[oberts] Baldwin, […]; R. Davis, […]; and T[homas] Davies, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 13

   Synonyms: dawdler

plural dawdles

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of doddle (“a job, task, or other activity that is easy to complete or simple”).

   1 more example

   He was a QC from Edinburgh, wearing the black jacket and pinstripe trousers of his trade, as if straight from court, and probably persuaded to come in the belief that if you could interest the Budhill and Springboig party in the repressive Gaullist policies in Algeria then becoming Solicitor-General was a dawdle.

   2009, Archie Macpherson, “Thumping the Tub”, in A Game of Two Halves: The Autobiography, Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, →ISBN, page 63