footle
Syllables: foo·tle/ˈfuːtəl/
footle verb: to waste time; to trifle.
Verb
footle (third-person singular simple present footles, present participle footling, simple past and past participle footled)
- To waste time; to trifle.
- Curtis says that he works like any other journalist: people and ideas grab him; he wastes time on TikTok, which he adores; he footles about in libraries.2021 January 28, Sam Knight, “Adam Curtis Explains It All”, in The New Yorker
- Synonyms:
- arse about, arse around, bludge, bum around, cabbage, clown around, dally, dawdle, dick about, dick around
- To talk nonsense.
- To have sex.
Noun
footle (uncountable)
- nonsense; foolishness.
- Synonyms:
- nonsense
Synonyms of footle
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of footle
| third-person singular present | footles |
|---|---|
| present participle | footling |
| past participle | footled |
| past | footled |
Origin of footle
Probably variant of footer (“to screw around”), from obsolete fouter (“an act of sexual intercourse”), from French foutre (“to have sexual intercourse”), from Latin futuere.
Words formed from footle
Words that rhyme with footle
Questions about footle
- What does footle mean?
- Footle means to waste time; to trifle.
- What part of speech is footle?
- Footle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce footle?
- Footle is pronounced /ˈfuːtəl/.
- What is the past tense of footle?
- The past tense of footle is footled.
Words near footle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: footle (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-footle.wav.
Cite this entry: “footle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/footle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.