Other forms: dawdling
To dawdle is to move so slowly that time is wasted. Stop dawdling, dawdle on the way home, dawdling behind.
It is what adults say to children and almost never the reverse, and it implies the slowness is chosen rather than necessary. It is gentler than loiter, which suggests hanging about with a purpose somebody suspects.
1verbdawdleTo move so slowly that time is wasted.
“Don't dawdle on the way home from school, or you'll miss dinner.”
dawdle is a lingering.
Of uncertain origin, recorded from the seventeenth century, possibly related to a dialect word meaning to idle.
The verb is possibly:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA