Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Idly |
IdlyAdverb1. In an idle manner; "this is what I always imagined myself doing in the south of France, sitting idly, drinking coffee, watching the people". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "idly" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references) |
Synonym: IdlySynonym: lazily (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Waste | Phrase: magno conatu magnas nugas; le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle; " idly busy rolls their world away ". |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Idly |
| English words defined with "idly": At gaze ♦ babbling, blathering, blithering ♦ Finikin ♦ gabbling, Gadder, Gleek ♦ jabbering, jawbone ♦ lazily, lie about, lie around ♦ mess around, monkey, monkey around, muck about, muck around ♦ piddle, piddle away, potter, putter ♦ schmoose, schmooze, Scribbling, shmoose, shmooze, Stroam ♦ tinker, Tittle-tattling, To hang around, trifle, Twattle ♦ wanton, wanton away. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "idly": dictation period. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "idly": hallucinate. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; writing credit: Frances Walsh) | |
Lyrics | Idly wishing that tomorrow (Mean Old World; performing artist: Robert Palmer) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Like lord and lady in state, gazing idly across their vast fief of green lawns. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | He remained standing with his two companions at the end of the shed, listening idly to their talk or to the bursts of applause in the theatre |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Idly" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 98.91% of the time. "Idly" is used about 274 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adverb (general) | 98.91% | 271 | 17,854 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.09% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 274 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "idly": play idly ♦ stand idly by ♦ wander idly. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
idly | 12 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "idly"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | me përtaci, me nge (leisurely). (various references) | |
Arabic | على نحو مهمل, على نحو متسكع, بإهمال (carelessly, heedlessly, negligently, slack), بدون عمل (out of work). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | случайно (accidentally, at random, by accident, by chance, casually, circumstantially, fortuitously, happily, incidentally, occasionally, on occasion, perchance, sporadically), лениво, без определена цел (at large). (various references) | |
Chinese | 无所事事地. (various references) | |
Czech | neèinnì (inactively), lenivì, línì. (various references) | |
French | sans travailler, sans travail, paresseusement, négligemment, avec négligence. (various references) | |
German | untätig (dormant, idle, inactive, inactively, passive, quiescent). (various references) | |
Hebrew | בעצלתים. (various references) | |
Hungarian | tétlenül (passively), lustán. (various references) | |
Indonesian | dengan malas. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 徒に (aimlessly, in vain, uselessly). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | べんべんと, ぶらぶら (aimlessly, be idle, dangle heavily, lazily, loaf, loiter, stroll idly, sway to and fro, swing), いたずらに (aimlessly, in vain, uselessly). (various references) | |
Korean | 안일하게. (various references) | |
Manx | ny haaue (emeritus, retired). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | idlyay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | indolentemente (indolently), tolamente, ociosamente (vacantly), futilmente. (various references) | |
Romanian | lenevos (indolently), leneş (bum, dull, easeful, easy going, idle, Idler, lazily, lazy, lazybones, loafer, loiterer, otiose, shiftless, slothful, sluggard, sluggish, torpid, truant, vacant), fãrã scop, alene (carelessly, drowsy, indolently, lazily, slacky, sleepily, sleepy, slow, slowly), într-aiurea, în dorul lelii. (various references) | |
Russian | лениво (shiftlessly, sluggardly), праздно. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | zaludno, zabadava (free, gratis, nothing: for nothing), dokono. (various references) | |
Spanish | inútilmente (bootlessly, needlessly, pointlessly, uselessly, vainly), vanamente (vainly), ociosamente. (various references) | |
Swedish | inaktivt, sysslolöst, sysslolöshet (idleness, inoccupation, play). (various references) | |
Thai | อย่างเกียจคร้าน (lazily). (various references) | |
Turkish | tembel tembel, boş boş (blankly, vacantly), boş bir şekilde (hollow), aylak aylak. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | марно (fondly, in vain, needlessly, of no effect), бездіяльно (inactively), даремно (a-waste, for nothing, uselessly, vainly). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vu vơ (aimless, gratuitous, idle), vẩn vơ (idle), vô hiệu quả (idle), không tác dụng không đâu, ăn không ngồi rồi; sự lười nhác vô ích. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "idly": acidly, acridly, aridly, avidly, bifidly, candidly, fervidly, fetidly, flaccidly, floridly, fluidly, frigidly, gelidly, gravidly, horridly, humidly, insipidly, intrepidly, invalidly, languidly, limpidly, liquidly, lividly, lucidly, luridly, morbidly, pallidly, pellucidly, placidly, putridly, rabidly, rancidly, rapidly, rigidly, solidly, sordidly, splendidly, squalidly, staidly, stolidly, stupidly, subacidly, tepidly, timidly, torpidly, torridly, tumidly, turbidly, turgidly, uncandidly, validly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Idly" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Adyl, Aidley, dilq, Dily, Dly, iclr, iday, Idayu, Iddy, idelly, idely, idl, idlc, idley, idli, idy, idyl, idyla, idyle, igly, ild, Ili, ilie, Illy, Ily, ioli, Islywn, kidolgy, odly, piddly, udly. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "idly" (pronounced ī"dlē) |
| 4 | ī" d l ē | widely. |
| 3 | -d l ē | absurdly, acidly, admittedly, advisedly, allegedly, assertedly, assuredly, avidly, avowedly, awkwardly, badly, baldly, belatedly, blandly, blindly, boldly, broadly, candidly, coldly, contentedly, cowardly, crudely, cuddly, dastardly, deadly, decidedly, deservedly, determinedly, Diddley, kindly, doggedly, downwardly, evenhandedly, excitedly, fondly, friendly, gladly, godly, goodly, grandly, guardedly, haphazardly, hardly, heatedly, hurriedly, inwardly, loudly, madly, markedly, medley, mildly, oddly, otherworldly, outwardly, placidly, pointedly, profoundly, proudly, purportedly, rapidly, repeatedly, reportedly, reputedly, Ridley, rigidly, roundly, rudely, ruggedly, sadly, secondly, shrewdly, solidly, soundly, splendidly, straightforwardly, stupidly, supposedly, thirdly, timidly, unabashedly, unashamedly, undoubtedly, unexpectedly, unfriendly, ungodly, unprecedentedly, upwardly, validly, vividly, weirdly, wholeheartedly, wickedly, wildly, worldly, wretchedly. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: idyl. | |
| Words within the letters "d-i-l-y" | |
-1 letter: lid, yid. | |
-2 letters: id, li. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-i-l-y" | |
+1 letter: daily, dilly, dimly, doily, drily, idyll, idyls, lindy, yield. | |
+2 letters: acidly, aridly, avidly, bodily, daylit, dewily, diddly, dimply, dinkly, direly, dozily, edgily, eyelid, fiddly, idylls, kindly, milady, mildly, piddly, ploidy, ridley, tiddly, tidily, widely, wieldy, wildly, xyloid, yields. | |
+3 letters: acridly, amyloid, audibly, bawdily, beadily, bifidly, blindly, buirdly, bylined, childly, cycloid, dactyli, daffily, dandily, daylily, devilry, dialyse, dialyze, dicliny, dicotyl, dicycly, diddley, dingily, dirtily, display, dizzily, doomily, dottily, dowdily, doylies, dribbly, drizzly, duality, dulcify, dumpily, duskily, dustily, eyelids, fetidly, fixedly, fluidly, gaudily, gelidly, giddily, godlily, handily, hardily, headily, holiday, humidly, hyaloid, hyoidal, ideally, idylist, idyllic, indoxyl, ladyish, ladykin, lairdly, lividly, lucidly, luridly, lyddite, mildewy, moodily, muddily, myeloid, needily, podgily, psyllid, pudgily, pyralid, rabidly, rapidly, readily, reedily, ridleys, rigidly, rowdily, ruddily, seedily, shadily, snidely, solidly, spindly, staidly, styloid, sylphid, tardily, tepidly, thirdly, tidally, timidly, tiredly, tumidly, twiddly, validly, vapidly, vividly, waylaid, weedily, weirdly, windily, wordily, xylidin, yielded, yielder, yodling. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
