- (disapproving) (of people) not working hard synonym lazy
- an idle student
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.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- become
- remain
- …
- bone
- (of machines, factories, etc.) not in use
- to lie/stand/remain idle
Extra Examples- Half their machines are lying idle.
- He did not let the factory become idle.
- The pumps are standing idle.
- The land was left idle for years.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- lie
- sit
- …
- (of people) without work synonym unemployed
- Over ten per cent of the workforce is now idle.
- He never stayed idle for long.
- [usually before noun] with no particular purpose or effect
- idle chatter/curiosity
- It was just an idle threat (= not serious).
- It is idle to pretend that their marriage is a success.
- [usually before noun] (of time) not spent doing work or something particular
- In idle moments, he carved wooden figures.
Word OriginOld English īdel ‘empty, useless’, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch ijdel ‘vain, frivolous, useless’ and German eitel ‘bare, worthless’.
Idioms
See idle in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee idle in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishthe devil makes work for idle hands
- (saying) people who do not have enough to do often start to do wrong
- She blamed the crimes on the local jobless teenagers. ‘The devil makes work for idle hands,’ she would say.
Check pronunciation:
idle