Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Delaying; idle.
  • Causing delay; inducing idleness.

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

  • verb Present participle of loiter.
  • noun The action of the verb loiter

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Meantime I spent all my available time in loitering around newspaper offices and picking up such stray bits of gossip as were offered.

    The Filigree Ball 1903

  • After dinner an hour – which the doctor called a digestive hour – was spent in loitering about and then the studies were resumed.

    The Hidden Hand 1888

  • One day he called the loitering school-boy to his chair; there was an unbroken, and to the de - linquent, an awful silence in the room; every eye was fixed upon him, every ear was attentive; all was solemn expectation in the youthful assembly.

    The life of Richard Cumberland, esq. Embracing a critical examination of his various writings. With an occasional literary inquiry into the age in which he lived, and the contemporaries with whom he flourished Mudford, William, 1782-1848 1812

  • For the sake of argument, let's say there is an exemption in the loud noise ordinance that allows the library, or any business, to disregard it if the reason they are blaring their music is to keep undesirable kids from "loitering" -- which isn't illegal in Ohio -- in front of the business.

    Is Tender Mercies Breaking The Law, Too? Nathaniel Livingston 2006

  • For the sake of argument, let's say there is an exemption in the loud noise ordinance that allows the library, or any business, to disregard it if the reason they are blaring their music is to keep undesirable kids from "loitering" -- which isn't illegal in Ohio -- in front of the business.

    Archive 2006-04-01 Nathaniel Livingston 2006

  • Now what used to be called "hanging out" - or, by less charitable observers, "loitering" - has a new name: "stooping."

    Tales Out of School 2001

  • Now what used to be called "hanging out" - or, by less charitable observers, "loitering" - has a new name: "stooping."

    Tales Out of School 2001

  • The big break you ask about occurred when the people around me began to value what they previously viewed as a kind of loitering, which is so tied up to class, particularly working-class people.

    Identity Theory 2009

  • In a former Parliament he was convicted of what was officially known as loitering in the Lobby.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 Various 1898

  • To Jet the idea of loitering around first one town and then another with no definite plan, unless the simple hope of meeting the man by accident could be called one, was in the highest degree unsatisfactory.

    Messenger No. 48 James Otis 1880

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