Explore Idle through 10+ example sentences from English, with an explanation of the meaning and related words like unemployed or ineffective. Ideal for language learners, writers and word enthusiasts.
Idle in a sentence
Related words
Idle meaning
- Empty, vacant.
- Not being used appropriately; not occupied; (of time) with no, no important, or not much activity.
- Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing in particular.
Synonyms of Idle
Using Idle
- The main meaning on this page is: Empty, vacant. | Not being used appropriately; not occupied; (of time) with no, no important, or not much activity. | Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing in particular.
- Useful related words include: unemployed, uneffective, ineffective, unengaged.
- In the example corpus, idle often appears in combinations such as: idle for, idle and, sitting idle.
Context around Idle
- Average sentence length in these examples: 27.7 words
- Position in the sentence: 4 start, 12 middle, 4 end
- Sentence types: 19 statements, 1 questions, 0 exclamations
Corpus analysis for Idle
- In this selection, "idle" usually appears in the middle of the sentence. The average example has 27.7 words, and this corpus slice is mostly made up of statements.
- Around the word, officially, eric, jones, chatter, stands and jones stand out and add context to how "idle" is used.
- Recognizable usage signals include although officially idle stands for and been sitting idle nor not. That gives this page its own corpus information beyond isolated example sentences.
- By corpus frequency, "idle" sits close to words such as attire, bates and battleground, which helps place it inside the broader word index.
Example types with idle
The same corpus examples are grouped by length and sentence type, making it easier to see the contexts in which the word appears:
Ah, the life of the idle rich. (7 words)
Credit to them, they haven't been idle. (8 words)
Alwero Dam cost 648 million birr but lies idle. (9 words)
At the same time the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set had led Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese's proposal and brought along Idle, Jones and Gilliam. (45 words)
He loves being in the cut and thrust of it all and has not been idle during his enforced absence, studying games, analysing players and working out when and where to relaunch a career in which he has won 13 major honours. (42 words)
But Bryan first wished to tie the silver question to a greater cause:sfnsfn Upon which side will the Democratic Party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? (40 words)
But Bryan first wished to tie the silver question to a greater cause:sfnsfn Upon which side will the Democratic Party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? (40 words)
Example sentences (20)
Although officially IDLE stands for "Integrated DeveLopment Environment", the name has been chosen in allusion to Eric Idle, as the name of the programming language Python itself has been chosen in allusion to the British comedy group Monty Python.
At the same time the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set had led Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese's proposal and brought along Idle, Jones and Gilliam.
But Bryan first wished to tie the silver question to a greater cause:sfnsfn Upon which side will the Democratic Party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"?
However, when "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was adopted as a football chant in the late 1980s, Idle's then neighbour Gary Lineker suggested Idle re-record and release the popular track.
In early 2001 the CD Ride was released, featuring a new addition to the Idle Chatter family: "Idle Chatter Junior" and the 19-minute title piece, which tries to simulate a ride through various towns and country.
A decentralized infrastructure can leverage low-cost and idle resources from around the world; According to Anthesis Group and Stanford University Researchers, are sitting “comatose”.
Ah, the life of the idle rich.
Allow the engine to idle for at least a minute (or longer in icy weather) before putting it in gear, allowing the oil to circulate and apply its lubricating powers to internal components before the action begins.
Alwero Dam cost 648 million birr but lies idle.
Credit to them, they haven't been idle.
Except this latest linking of Postecoglou to the Premier League doesn’t feel like idle speculation which can be traced back to who is being priced up by the bookies.
For example, there is a radar that will call Pikmin back to the player if they are idle at the base or somewhere else.
Governors have not been sitting idle nor not acting upon staff complaints.
He added he expected idle capacity at Argentina’s crushing plants along the Parana River to exceed the current 65%.
He loves being in the cut and thrust of it all and has not been idle during his enforced absence, studying games, analysing players and working out when and where to relaunch a career in which he has won 13 major honours.
However, I am willing to bet that if this incentivizes many users to switch from Google search to Bing, Google will not stay idle and will find a way to develop its own program.
Hu Tao's "Hilitune" is not only sung by her on her voicelines and while she is idle, but also by Dusky Ming in Wangshu.
Idle Sleep allows you to choose a medium firmness level on both sides, a luxury-firm level on both sides, or one side with a medium firmness and one side with a luxury-firm level.
If the land is lying idle it doesn’t matter who comes to develop it.
I had to kill time as chauffeur to Mary, who had endless dental appointments in that town, and I used to do this undisturbed in that glorious establishment – a unique resource for the idle.
Common combinations with idle
These word pairs occur most frequently in English texts:
- idle for 16×
- idle and 12×
- sitting idle 11×
- the idle 10×
- been idle 10×
- idle time 9×
- an idle 9×
- sit idle 7×
- idle in 6×
- of idle 6×