while away

present singular third person whiles away · participle present whiling away · participle past whiled away · past whiled away · alternative misspelling wile away

1. transitiveTo spend (time) idly but pleasantly.

   It was then that Esste whiled away the time by answering Ansset's question.

   1980, Orson Scott Card, Songmaster, page 41

   2 more examples

   Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter II, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

   A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 294

   Synonyms: beguile

2. intransitiveTo elapse, to pass.

   The rest of the night hours whiled away for the prisoners as few slept.

   2010, Lori Davis, Second Wind, page 65

   2 more examples

   The hours whiled away and I steadily kept drinking, even though it had been years since I'd done any serious imbibing.

   2015, Hank Carver, House of Cards: Five Full Contact Years as a Las Vegas Nightclub Bouncer

   As the hours whiled away, they discussed everything magical they had learned and how Odele had managed to become a Keeper and survive a full year without help or interference.

   2018, Kester James Finley, Twisted Reunions (The Keeper Chronicles, Book 2)