Definition of "idle" []

• Not employed or busy: idle carpenters. See Synonyms at inactive. (adjective)
• Avoiding work or employment; lazy: shiftless, idle youth. See Synonyms at lazy. (adjective)
• Not in use or operation: idle hands. (adjective)
• Lacking substance, value, or basis. See Synonyms at baseless, vain. (adjective)
• To pass time without working or while avoiding work. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He is free to believe in his own beliefs which, according to Tusar, do not include the Vedic myths or what he calls the idle intellectual approximations of the Avatar."
• "The marquis privately reproved his daughters, for what he termed the idle fancies of a weak mind; and desired them no more to disturb the peace of the castle with the subject of their late fears."
• "His wife often admonished him of the danger of tampering with the deadly vice of intemperance; but he only laughed at what he termed her idle fears."