Idle vs Mere - What's the difference?
idle | mere |
(lb) Empty, vacant.
Not turned to appropriate use; not occupied.
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Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing.
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*
*:Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.
Averse to work, labor or employment; lazy; slothful.
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*
*:“I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle , brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital,!”
Of no importance; useless; worthless; vain; trifling; thoughtless; silly.
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(lb) Light-headed; foolish.
:(Ford)
To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume.
To lose or spend time doing nothing, or without being employed in business.
* 1939 , Joan Evans, Chateaubriand (page 32)
Of an engine: to run at a slow speed, or out of gear; to tick over.
(obsolete) the sea
(dialectal, or, literary) a pool; a small lake or pond; marsh
* 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber & Faber 2005, p. 194:
boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ix:
(obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
(obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.
(label) Pure, unalloyed .
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.8:
* , I.56:
(label) Nothing less than; complete, downright .
* , II.3.7:
Just, only; no more than , pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.
*
* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
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As an adjective idle
is (lb) empty, vacant.As a verb idle
is to spend in idleness; to waste; to consume.As a noun mere is
fear, awe.idle
English
(wikipedia idle)Adjective
(en adjective)Derived terms
* idle hands are the devil's workshop * idle pulley * idle wheelSynonyms
* See alsoVerb
(idl)- to idle in an IRC channel
- He had already heard of the young man's projected journey — evidently the Comte de Combourg had written many letters while his son idled at St. Malo
References
* *Anagrams
* * *mere
English
(wikipedia mere)Etymology 1
From (etyl) mere, from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l), (l)Noun
(en noun)- (Drayton)
- (Tennyson)
- Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.
Derived terms
* mereswine * mermaid * merman * merfolkEtymology 2
From (etyl), from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l), (l), (l)Noun
(en noun)- The Troian Brute'' did first that Citie found, / And ''Hygate'' made the meare thereof by West, / And ''Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.
Verb
(mer)Etymology 3
From (etyl), from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l)Etymology 4
From (etyl) meer, from (etyl) mier, from (etyl) merus. Perhaps influenced by (etyl) , or conflated with Etymology 3.Adjective
(er)- So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion.
- Meere .
- If every man might have what he wouldwe should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
- Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;.
Internal Combustion, passage=More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.}}
Pixels or Perish, passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}