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idleness |
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idleness noun 1. inactivity, unemployment, leisure, inaction, time on your hands Idleness is a very bad thing for human nature. 2. loafing, inertia, sloth, pottering, trifling, laziness, time-wasting, lazing, torpor, sluggishness, skiving (Brit. slang), vegetating, dilly-dallying (informal), shiftlessness Idleness and incompetence are not inbred in our workers. Quotations "Idleness is the only refuge of weak minds" [Lord Chesterfield Letters to his Son] Translations idleness [ˈaɪdlnɪs] N 1. (= leisure) → ocio m, ociosidad f; (= having nothing to do) → inactividad f, desocupación f; (= laziness) → holgazanería f, pereza f, flojera f (LAm); (= unemployment) → paro m, desempleo m (LAm) to live a life of idleness → llevar una vida ociosa she was frustrated by her enforced idleness → la desesperaba su forzada inactividad 2. (= emptiness) [of threat, promise] → lo vano; [of gossip, talk] → banalidad f, insustancialidad f idleness n (= state of not working) → Untätigkeit f; (pleasurable) → Muße f, → Müßiggang (liter) m; to live in idleness → ein untätiges Leben führen, ein Leben der Muße führen (liter); a life of blissful idleness → ein Leben voller köstlicher Muße (of promise, threat, words) → Leere f; (of speculation, talk) → Müßigkeit f; (of remark) → Beiläufigkeit f; (= uselessness) → Nutzlosigkeit f, → Vergeblichkeit f, → Eitelkeit f (old) How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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| The Ox saw what was being done, and said with a smile to the Heifer: "For this you were allowed to live in idleness, because you were presently to be sacrificed. Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed. As for the navy, it had fashion on its side, but I was too old when the subject was first started to enter it--and, at length, as there was no necessity for my having any profession at all, as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be most advantageous and honourable, and a young man of eighteen is not in general so earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his friends to do nothing. |
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