Word.ws English Dictionary

dawdled

dawdled is the simple past and past participle of dawdle.

Meaning of dawdle

Verb

dawdle (third-person singular simple present dawdles, present participle dawdling, simple past and past participle dawdled)

  1. (transitive) Chiefly followed by away: to spend (time) without haste or purpose.
    • to dawdle away the whole morning
    Synonyms:
    fiddle away
  2. (intransitive) To spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time.
    • Tell him, if he'll call on me, and davvdle over a diſh of tea in an afternoon, I ſhall take it kind.1791, James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, “[1781]”, in James Boswell, editor, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], volume II, London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 405
  3. (intransitive) To move or walk lackadaisically.
    • If you dawdle on your daily walk, you won’t get as much exercise.
    Synonyms:
    loiter, idle

See all 6 meanings of dawdle

Questions about dawdled

What is dawdled the simple past and past participle of?
Dawdled is the simple past and past participle of dawdle.

Words near dawdled in the dictionary

  1. dawcocks
  2. dawd
  3. dawded
  4. dawding
  5. dawdle
  6. dawdled
  7. dawdler
  8. dawdlers
  9. dawdles
  10. dawdlesome
  11. dawdlest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dawdled (page history and authors); dawdle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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