dawdle

Etymology 1

The verb is possibly: * a variant of daddle (“(Britain, dialectal) to walk or work slowly, dawdle, saunter, trifle”) or doddle (“(Britain, dialectal) to walk feebly or slowly, dawdle, idle, saunter, stroll”), possibly influenced by daw (“(Britain, dialectal) lazy, good-for-nothing person, sluggard”); or * borrowed from Middle Low German dȫdelen (“to dawdle”), related to Saterland Frisian döädelje (“to dawdle”); compare also German daddeln (“to play”), German verdaddeln (“to waste (time), neglect, ruin”). The noun is derived from the verb.

verb

1. (transitive) Chiefly followed by away: to spend (time) without haste or purpose.
   to dawdle away the whole morning
2. (intransitive)
   1. To spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time.
      There are no idlers here; the only loungers are those who have undertaken for hire to do other people's business, and the hireling dawdleth because he is an hireling. What is his master's business to him? he neither knows its importance nor yet cares he if it be neglected. 1888, [Julia Clara Byrne], chapter X, in De Omnibus Rebus: An Old Man’s Discursive Ramblings on the Road of Everyday Life[…], John C. Nimmo[…], →OCLC, pages 263–264
      White creature wholly white, thou winter-coloured imp, tongue-shaped and slippery, 'wall-streak' and 'rubbish of the floor,' that livest 'neath timbers of a house, that dawdlest underneath the nook, […] 1898, John Abercromby, “Charms of the East Finns, Russians, Letts, etc.”, in The Pre- and Proto-historic Finns: Both Eastern and Western with the Magic Songs of the West Finns, volume II, London: David Nutt[…], →OCLC, § 86 (Against the Cow-house Snake), subsection b, page 172
      However all [Wayne] Hennessey's good work went to waste on 52 minutes when he dawdled on the ball. 29 October 2011, Neil Johnston, “Norwich 3 – 3 Blackburn”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 2023-02-03
   2. To move or walk lackadaisically.
      If you dawdle on your daily walk, you won’t get as much exercise.
      Blessed are the drivers who dawdleth not in the fast lane. A deliberate use of an archaic form of the word. 2005, Charles Manley Brown, “Laws and Regulations”, in Thou Shalt Not Take Thyself too … Seriously: The Lighter Side of the Golden Years, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, page 68

noun

1. An act of spending time idly and unfruitfully; a dawdling.
2. An act of moving or walking lackadaisically, a dawdling; a leisurely or slow walk or other journey.
   For many the journey home from school was not a walk but a ‘dawdle’: it was an everyday experience that added meaning to their lives. 2017, Colin G. Pooley, Jean Turnbull, Mags Adams, “Travelling to School”, in A Mobile Century?: Changes in Everyday Mobility in Britain in the Twentieth Century, Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate
3. Synonym of dawdler (“a person who dawdles or idles”)

Etymology 2

A variant of doddle.

noun

1. Alternative spelling of doddle (“a job, task, or other activity that is easy to complete or simple”)
   He was a QC from Edinburgh, wearing the black jacket and pinstripe trousers of his trade, as if straight from court, and probably persuaded to come in the belief that if you could interest the Budhill and Springboig party in the repressive Gaullist policies in Algeria then becoming Solicitor-General was a dawdle. 2009, Archie Macpherson, “Thumping the Tub”, in A Game of Two Halves: The Autobiography, Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, page 63