loiter
UK/ˈlɔɪtə(ɹ)//ˈlɔɪtɚ/
loiter verb: to stand about without any aim or purpose; to stand about idly.
Verb
loiter (third-person singular simple present loiters, present participle loitering, simple past and past participle loitered)
- To stand about without any aim or purpose; to stand about idly.
- For some reason, they discourage loitering outside the store, but encourage it inside.
- Synonyms:
- lepak, linger, hang around
- To stroll about without any aim or purpose, to ramble, to wander.
- With weary steps I loiter on,
Tho’ always under alter’d skies
The purple from the distance dies,
My prospect and horizon gone.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXVIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 59
- With weary steps I loiter on,
- To remain at a certain place instead of moving on.
- The dancing, which had been suspended, now recommenced with additional animation, and De Candale claimed Francesca's hand; but the rooms were crowded, and they stood for some time loitering on one of the terraces.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter V, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 47
- For on what does the whole vast and varied membership of the craft rest? It rests, of course, on the little boys whom you see any day loitering about on the far end of station platforms in every part of the British Isles, each one with his grubby notebook and blunt pencil, and his list of all the...1948 September and October, Canon Roger Lloyd, “The Art and Mystery of the Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 331
- Of an aircraft, to remain in the air near a target.
Noun
loiter (plural loiters)
- A standing or strolling about without any aim or purpose.
- Oh, Sir, we just got up in the morning and had a loiter and a pipe on the green; then we got our breakfasts; […]1865, Edward Spooner, Parson and People, page 125
loiter meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
loiter in Tamil
- to stand about without any aim or purpose
- லாந்து lāntu
loiter in Urdu
- آوارہ گردی کرنا, ڈیرا ڈالنا
loiter in Bengali
- অলসভাবে ঘোরাঘুরি করা, দেরি করা, কালক্ষেপ করা
loiter in Malayalam
- അലസമായി നടക്കുക, വെറുതെ ചുറ്റിത്തിരിയുക, കറങ്ങി നടക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- loiter in Kannada
- ಅಡ್ಡಾಡು, ಅಲೆದಾಡು, ಮೆಲ್ಲ ನಡೆ, ತೊಳಲ್ತರ್
- loiter in Nepali
- डुल्नु ḍulnu
- loiter in Tagalog
- mag-ansikot, mag-asikot
- loiter in Persian
- وایستادن vâystâdan
- loiter in Thai
- ยืนเอ้อระเหย, ยืนเตร็ดเตร่
- loiter in Vietnamese
- la cà
Examples of loiter in a sentence
- [Sergio] Agüero, as usual, was loitering with intent and swung his left foot at the ball.2015 January 31, Daniel Taylor, “David Silva seizes point for Manchester City as Chelsea are checked”, in The Guardian, London, archived...
- Using the transect method, the counter had to maintain a general progress along the transect and was not able to loiter at one spot for too long.2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual...
Synonyms of loiter
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of loiter
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | loiters |
| present participle | loitering |
| past participle | loitered |
| past | loitered |
| Noun | |
| plural | loiters |
Origin of loiter
From Middle English loitren, from Middle Dutch loteren ("to shake, wag, wobble"; > modern Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle, ramble”)), ultimately connected with a frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *lūtaną (“to bend, stoop, cower, shrink from, decline”), see lout. Cognate with Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle”), Alemannic German lottern (“to wobble”), German lottern (“live a slovenly life”). More at lout, little.
Words formed from loiter
Phrases with loiter
Words that rhyme with loiter
Questions about loiter
- What does loiter mean?
- Loiter means to stand about without any aim or purpose; to stand about idly.
- What is loiter in Tamil?
- Loiter in Tamil is லாந்து (lāntu). See Loiter meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use loiter in a sentence?
- [Sergio] Agüero, as usual, was loitering with intent and swung his left foot at the ball.
- What part of speech is loiter?
- Loiter can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce loiter?
- Loiter is pronounced /ˈlɔɪtə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of loiter?
- The past tense of loiter is loitered.
Words near loiter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: loiter (page history and authors); loiter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Loiter (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); loiter (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); loiter (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-loiter.ogg.
Cite this entry: “loiter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loiter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.