Word.ws English Dictionary

idlely

idlely is the obsolete form of idly.

Meaning of idly

Adverb

idly (comparative more idly, superlative most idly)

  1. Without specific purpose, intent or effort.
    • I idly played with the paper, not even realizing I was folding it into a paper airplane.
  2. In an idle manner.

Forms of idlely

comparativemore idlely
superlativemost idlely

Questions about idlely

What is idlely the obsolete form of?
Idlely is the obsolete form of idly.

Words near idlely in the dictionary

  1. idleful
  2. idlehead
  3. idleheaded
  4. idleheads
  5. idlehood
  6. idlely
  7. idleness
  8. idlenesses
  9. idler
  10. idler wheel
  11. idler-wheel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: idlely (page history and authors); idly (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: “idlely.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/idlely. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.