Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete idleness

Etymologies

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Examples

  • But in the "idlesse" and solitude of the poet's exile the great work begun in the two pleasant years of his stay at Penshurst had at last taken form, and it was to publish the first three books of the "Faerie

    History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) Puritan England, 1603-1660 John Richard Green 1860

  •   Hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays,

    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 2007

  • Bides no tiller afield; necks soften of oxen in idlesse;

    Poems and Fragments 2006

  • Bides no tiller afield; necks soften of oxen in idlesse;

    Poems and Fragments 2006

  • Our butterfly hours were then past: we grew into work-a-day bees -- if only we have stored some honey in your hives to pay us for the lost idlesse of our dreamy summers!

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

  • Bides no tiller afield; necks soften of oxen in idlesse;

    The Poems and Fragments of Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus

  • She, in her youth and beauty, has been happy during her year of idlesse as play-Duchess of Juliers; she is happier now as she abandons the court and, sure in her grave choice, turns with a light and joyous laugh to welcome the birthday gift of freedom and of love that has so unexpectedly come to her.

    Robert Browning Dowden, Edward 1904

  • (Ill there was sloth and idlesse) beneath fair Kriemhild's eye

    National Epics Kate Milner Rabb 1901

  • I will repeat it anon and anon in mine idlesse, whereby I may peradventure learn it.

    A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 1889

  • Best or happiness, as other men consider these blessings, he had never known; the sense of triumph in success of the present, the feverish expectation of success in the future -- these had stood to him in the place of love and hope, pleasure and idlesse, all the joys and comforts of this lower world, and all the holy dreams of purer pleasures in a world to come.

    Charlotte's Inheritance 1875

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