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idle

Pronunciation: /ˈaɪd(ə)l/

The English word “idle” has 15 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Empty, vacant.
  2. Not being used appropriately; not occupied; (of time) with no, no important, or not much activity.
  3. Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing in particular.
  4. Averse to work, labor or employment; lazy; slothful.
  5. Of no importance; useless; worthless; vain; trifling; thoughtless; silly.
  6. Light-headed; foolish.

verb

  1. To spend (time) in idleness; to waste; to consume.
  2. To lose or spend time doing nothing, or without being employed in business.
  3. Of an engine: to run at a slow speed, or out of gear; to tick over.
  4. To cause (an engine) to idle (run at a slow speed, or out of gear).
  5. To make (workers, students, etc) idle; to leave without work.

noun

  1. The state of idling, of being idle.
  2. The lowest selectable thrust or power setting of an engine.
  3. An idle animation.
  4. An idle game.

Etymology

From Middle English idel, ydel, from Old English īdel, from Proto-West Germanic *īdl, from Proto-Germanic *īdlaz. Cognate with Dutch ijdel (“vain, meaningless”), ijl (“rareified, skinny”), iel (“thin, slender”); German Low German iedel (“vain, idle”); German eitel (“vain, conceited”); and possibly Old Norse illr ("bad"; > English ill).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.