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Idler   /ˈaɪdələr/  /ˈaɪdlər/   Listen
noun
Idler  n.  
1.
One who idles; one who spends his time in inaction; a lazy person; a sluggard.
2.
(Naut.) One who has constant day duties on board ship, and keeps no regular watch.
3.
(Mach.) An idle wheel or pulley. See under Idle.


adjective
Idle  adj.  (compar. idler; superl. idlest)  
1.
Of no account; useless; vain; trifling; unprofitable; thoughtless; silly; barren. "Deserts idle." "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." "Down their idle weapons dropped." "This idle story became important."
2.
Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours. "The idle spear and shield were high uphing."
3.
Not employed; unoccupied with business; inactive; doing nothing; as, idle workmen. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?"
4.
Given rest and ease; averse to labor or employment; lazy; slothful; as, an idle fellow.
5.
Light-headed; foolish. (Obs.)
Idle pulley (Mach.), a pulley that rests upon a belt to tighten it; a pulley that only guides a belt and is not used to transmit power.
Idle wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel placed between two others, to transfer motion from one to the other without changing the direction of revolution.
In idle, in vain. (Obs.) "God saith, thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in idle."
Synonyms: Unoccupied; unemployed; vacant; inactive; indolent; sluggish; slothful; useless; ineffectual; futile; frivolous; vain; trifling; unprofitable; unimportant. Idle, Indolent, Lazy. A propensity to inaction is expressed by each of these words; they differ in the cause and degree of this characteristic. Indolent denotes an habitual love to ease, a settled dislike of movement or effort; idle is opposed to busy, and denotes a dislike of continuous exertion. Lazy is a stronger and more contemptuous term than indolent.





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"Idler" Quotes from Famous Books



... from him for any ostensible object, who can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life, and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good eating and drinking; ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
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... and there with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. Gardiner was very zealous for the support of the Ladies' charity-school, in the parish of St. Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am told, it afforded a hint for the story of Betty Broom in The Idler. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
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... most notorious idler in the neighbourhood, hight "Barnulf with the nose." His eyes looked red and swollen, and his senses had become muddled and obtuse with long steeping. Silence was immediately enforced, while the assembly anxiously awaited the interrogation of this ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
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... knowledge of men to recognise the difference between the two. Count Plettau was a mere hopeless idler and vagabond. Frielinghausen was at least inspired with a wish to pull himself together and become ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
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... off with allegories," his companion objected petulantly. "The eternal blackness exists surely enough, even if my metaphor is faulty. I am disposed to be philosophical. Let me ramble on. Here am I, an idler in my boyhood, a harmless pleasure-seeker in my youth till I ran up against tragedy, and since then a drifter, a drifter with a slowly growing vice, lolling through life with no definite purpose, with no definite hope or wish, except," he went on a little drowsily, "that I think I'd like ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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