Word.ws English Dictionary

sitting idly by

sitting idly by is the present participle and gerund of sit idly by.

Meaning of sit idly by

Verb

sit idly by (third-person singular simple present sits idly by, present participle sitting idly by, simple past and past participle sat idly by)

  1. To remain close or stand aside while refraining from acting or intervening.
    Synonyms:
    sit by

Questions about sitting idly by

What is sitting idly by the present participle and gerund of?
Sitting idly by is the present participle and gerund of sit idly by.

Words near sitting idly by in the dictionary

  1. sitting by
  2. sitting down
  3. sitting duck
  4. sitting ducks
  5. sitting for
  6. sitting idly by
  7. sitting in
  8. sitting in for
  9. sitting in judgement
  10. sitting in judgment
  11. sitting in on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sitting idly by (page history and authors); sit idly by (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:

Cite this entry: “sitting idly by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sitting_idly_by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.