idle
verb/ˈaɪdl/
/ˈaɪdl/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they idle | /ˈaɪdl/ /ˈaɪdl/ |
| he / she / it idles | /ˈaɪdlz/ /ˈaɪdlz/ |
| past simple idled | /ˈaɪdld/ /ˈaɪdld/ |
| past participle idled | /ˈaɪdld/ /ˈaɪdld/ |
| -ing form idling | /ˈaɪdlɪŋ/ /ˈaɪdlɪŋ/ |
- [transitive, intransitive] to spend time doing nothing important
- idle something (+ adv./prep.) They idled the days away, talking and watching television.
- (+ adv./prep.) They idled along by the river (= walked slowly and with no particular purpose).
Homophones idle | idolidle idol/ˈaɪdl//ˈaɪdl/- idle adjective
- He has had some downtime recently, but he hasn't been idle.
- idle verb
- She's not the sort of person to idle her time away.
- idol noun
- She was my idol when I was growing up.
- [intransitive] (of an engine) to run slowly while the vehicle is not moving synonym tick over
- She left the car idling at the roadside.
- [transitive] idle somebody/something (North American English) to close a factory, etc. or stop providing work for the workers, especially temporarily
- The strikes have idled nearly 4 000 workers.
Word OriginOld English īdel ‘empty, useless’, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch ijdel ‘vain, frivolous, useless’ and German eitel ‘bare, worthless’.
Check pronunciation:
idle