Meanings
present singular third person footles · participle present footling · participle past footled · past footled
- To waste time; to trifle.
Curtis says that he works like any other journalist: people and ideas grab him; he wastes time on TikTok, which he adores; he footles about in libraries.
2021 January 28, Sam Knight, “Adam Curtis Explains It All”, in The New YorkerSynonyms: arse about, arse around, bludge, bum around, cabbage, clown around, dally, dawdle
- archaicvulgarTo have sex.
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo waste time; to trifle.
nounnonsense; foolishness.
More synonyms by meaning
verbbe about a place without any apparent purpose
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latinfutuere
- Frenchfoutre“to have sexual intercourse”
- Englishfootle
Probably variant of footer (“to screw around”), from obsolete fouter (“an act of sexual intercourse”), from French foutre (“to have sexual intercourse”), from Latin futuere.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian говоря глупости, глупост
- говоря глупости (govorja gluposti)to talk nonsense
- глупост (glupost)nonsense; foolishness
- безсмислица (bezsmislica)nonsense; foolishness
Chinese Mandarin 讲废话
- 讲废话 (Jiǎngfèihuà)to talk nonsense
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with footle
All rhymes →Cite this entry
footle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footle
“footle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footle. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “footle,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footle.
Source: footle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.