Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In railroading, an empty car; an empty.
- noun One who idles; one who spends his time in inaction, or without occupation or employment; a lounging or lazy person; a sluggard.
- noun Nautical, a member of a ship's crew who is not required to keep night-watch.
- noun On board a whaler, one who is not required to assist in the capture of whales.
- noun In machinery, an idle-wheel.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who idles; one who spends his time in inaction; a lazy person; a sluggard.
- noun (Naut.) One who has constant day duties on board ship, and keeps no regular watch.
- noun (Mach.) An idle wheel or pulley. See under
Idle .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun One who
idles ; one who spends his time ininaction . - noun One who
idles ; alazy person; asluggard .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun person who does no work
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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They should be taught that to labor is honorable, and that the idler is a menace to the commonwealth.
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Then the idler is a leech on himself -- his own despoiler.
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They should be taught that to labor is honorable, and that the idler is a menace to the commonwealth.
Catholics and the Negro Joseph Butsch 1917
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The latter will always bear in mind, that he who worked was a man drawing into the wane of life; that he bore about him the appearance of one who, either from incompetency or from some fatality of fortune, had been doomed to struggle through the world, keeping poverty from his residence only by the aid of great industry and rigid frugality; and that the idler was a youth of an age and condition that the acquisition of an entire set of habiliments formed to him a sort of era in his adventures.
The Red Rover James Fenimore Cooper 1820
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That puts him perilously closed to being, by Edward's lights, a dreaded "idler" living off his wife's income.
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"idler," give to the whole little society the aspect of nothing so much as the court of Prinz Irenaeus in Kater Murr's inestimable autobiography.
The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Huxley, Leonard 1900
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Already we've got idler pulleys that snap over a skate bearing that are made on a MakerBot.
Boing Boing 2009
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An idler who makes no useful contribution to Florence?
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I fear that he will become an idler, unless we yield the point, and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected.
Chapter 6 2010
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An idler who makes no useful contribution to Florence?
dailyword commented on the word idler
This word was used in "Master And Commander."
June 18, 2012
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June 19, 2012
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June 19, 2012