while away

Verb

while away (third-person singular simple present whiles away, present participle whiling away, simple past and past participle whiled away)

1. (transitive) To spend (time) idly but pleasantly.
   • Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter II, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
   • A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from...1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 294

   Synonyms:

   beguile

2. (intransitive) To elapse, to pass.
   • The rest of the night hours whiled away for the prisoners as few slept.2010, Lori Davis, Second Wind, page 65
   • The hours whiled away and I steadily kept drinking, even though it had been years since I'd done any serious imbibing.2015, Hank Carver, House of Cards: Five Full Contact Years as a Las Vegas Nightclub Bouncer