Word.ws English Dictionary

doing nothing

doing nothing is the present participle and gerund of do nothing.

Meaning of do nothing

Verb

do nothing (third-person singular simple present does nothing, present participle doing nothing, simple past did nothing, past participle done nothing)

  1. To not take any action; to fail to do or accomplish something.
    • "That colour does nothing for you" "Argh! And you do nothing but complain bout everything!"

Questions about doing nothing

What is doing nothing the present participle and gerund of?
Doing nothing is the present participle and gerund of do nothing.

Words near doing nothing in the dictionary

  1. doing it tough
  2. doing it up brown
  3. doing justice
  4. doing lunch
  5. doing more harm than good
  6. doing nothing
  7. doing numbers
  8. doing off
  9. doing one's bit
  10. doing one's business
  11. doing one's damnedest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing nothing (page history and authors); do nothing (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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Cite this entry: “doing nothing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doing_nothing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.