dawdle

1. 1.

   take one's time; proceed slowly

   Synonymslinger

   Broadermove
2. 2.

   waste time

   “Get busy--don't dally!”

   Synonymsdally

   Broaderact
3. 3.

   hang (back) or fall (behind) in movement, progress, development, etc.

   Synonymslagfall backfall behind

   Broaderfollow

   Narrowerdrag

Other forms of dawdle

past tense

dawdled·

present participle

dawdling·

third person

dawdles·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about dawdle

What does dawdle mean?

dawdle means "take one's time; proceed slowly". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in dawdle?

dawdle has 2 syllables: daw-dle. The stress falls on "daw". In IPA it is /ˈdɔdəl/.

What is another word for dawdle?

Close synonyms include linger, dally, lag, fall back, fall behind. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is dawdle a common word?

dawdle is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.