footle

See also: föotle

English

Etymology

Probably variant of footer (“to screw around”), from obsolete fouter (“an act of sexual intercourse”), from French foutre (“to have sexual intercourse”), from Latin futuere.

Pronunciation

• enPR: fo͞otəl, IPA^(key): /fuːtəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːtəl

Verb

footle (third-person singular simple present footles, present participle footling, simple past and past participle footled)

1. To waste time; to trifle.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:loiter

   • 2021 January 28, Sam Knight, “Adam Curtis Explains It All”, in The New Yorker‎^[1]:

     Curtis says that he works like any other journalist: people and ideas grab him; he wastes time on TikTok, which he adores; he footles about in libraries.

2. To talk nonsense.

   Synonyms: babble, jabber

Derived terms

• footle about
• footle around
• footle away
• footler

 

Translations

To talk nonsense

• Bulgarian: говоря глупости (govorja gluposti)

Noun

footle (uncountable)

1. nonsense; foolishness.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:nonsense

Translations

nonsense;foolishness

• Bulgarian: глупост (bg) f (glupost), безсмислица (bg) f (bezsmislica)