idle
adjective · verb · noun
Simple meaning
Not engaged in any occupation or employment.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
eyeduhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈaɪdəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing in particular.
Not being used appropriately; not occupied; (of time) with no, no important, or not much activity.
Averse to work, labor or employment; lazy; slothful.
Of no importance; useless; worthless; vain; trifling; thoughtless; silly.
verb
intransitive
To lose or spend time doing nothing, or without being employed in business.
intransitive
Of an engine: to run at a slow speed, or out of gear; to tick over.
transitive
To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume.
Run disconnected or idle
Be idle; exist in a changeless situation
transitive
To cause (an engine) to idle(3)
noun
The state of idling, of being idle.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing in particular.
Used this way, idle is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Business/professional
Nearby words
- unengaged , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use idle
- “The car engine was running at idle.”noun
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Person who does no work.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A pulley on a shaft that presses against a guide belt to guide or tighten it.
Empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk.
A pulley on a shaft that presses against a guide belt to guide or tighten it.
A pulley on a shaft that presses against a guide belt to guide or tighten it.
Idle or foolish and irrelevant talk.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: not engaged in any occupation or employment
Use This Word
See how this word sounds in a real sentence.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Knowing “idle” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.