Do-nothing

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A lazy person.
  2. 2
    person who does no work wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Doing nothing, not taking any action. attributive

    "It became clear that a chronic do-nothing approach to the problem's management would no longer suffice."

Adjective
  1. 1
    characterized by inability or unwillingness to work toward a goal or assume responsibility wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bumidlerlayaboutloaferclock watchercouch potato

Example

More examples

"For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away."

Etymology

Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb, but from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a verb phrase containing a complement.

Related phrases

do-nothingismdo-nothingness

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.