idleness

1. 1.

   having no employment

   Synonymsidlingloafing

   Broaderinactivity

   Narrowerdolce far niente
2. 2.

   the quality of lacking substance or value

   “the groundlessness of their report was quickly recognized”

   Synonymsgroundlessness

   Broaderworthlessness
3. 3.

   the trait of being idle out of a reluctance to work

   Synonymsfaineance

   Broaderindolence

Other forms of idleness

plural

idlenesses·

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 idleness

What does idleness mean?

idleness means "having no employment". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in idleness?

idleness has 3 syllables: id-le-ness. The stress falls on "id". In IPA it is /ˈaɪdəlnəs/.

What is another word for idleness?

Close synonyms include idling, loafing, groundlessness, faineance. 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 idleness a common word?

idleness 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.