Loiter
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A standing or strolling about without any aim or purpose.
"Oh, Sir, we just got up in the morning and had a loiter and a pipe on the green; then we got our breakfasts; […]"
- 1 To stand about without any aim or purpose; to stand about idly.
"For some reason, they discourage loitering outside the store, but encourage it inside."
- 2 be about a place without any apparent purpose wordnet
- 3 To stroll about without any aim or purpose, to ramble, to wander. archaic
"With weary steps I loiter on, Tho’ always under alter’d skies The purple from the distance dies, My prospect and horizon gone."
- 4 To remain at a certain place instead of moving on.
"The dancing, which had been suspended, now recommenced with additional animation, and De Candale claimed Francesca's hand; but the rooms were crowded, and they stood for some time loitering on one of the terraces."
- 5 For an aircraft to remain in the air near a target.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"If you loiter here much longer, people will think you're up to something."
Etymology
From Middle English loitren, from Middle Dutch loteren ("to shake, wag, wobble"; > modern Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle, ramble”)), ultimately connected with a frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *lūtaną (“to bend, stoop, cower, shrink from, decline”), see lout. Cognate with Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle”), Alemannic German lottern (“to wobble”), German Lotterbube (“rascal”). More at lout, little.