Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To waste time; trifle.
- v. To talk nonsense.
- n. Nonsense; foolishness.
Wiktionary
- v. To waste time; to trifle.
- v. To talk nonsense.
- n. nonsense; foolishness.
WordNet 3.0
- v. act foolishly, as by talking nonsense
- v. be about
Etymologies
- 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 (Wiktionary)
- 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; see bhau- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“footle," in the business of advertising he developed a curious literary twist.”
“This is not a major refit, just an up-gun of GURPS Horror, 3rd Ed. to the GURPS 4E rules, but I have been granted 16 or so more pages to footle around in.”
“If you sit down and listen in any moderately lucid state of mind the impression you have is of an old man muttering and ranting on in the aural foreground, while some young lads, engaged on some completely unrelated project, footle around with the controls on a mixing desk in the next room”
“Permission to footle in the lab. on half-holidays, and all the rest of it?”
“I suppose you'll just footle, then," his friend had summed it up, and left him, because it was half-past six, and they had dinner at that strange hour.”
“(I'm calling it footle, Ponderevo, out of praise, "he said in parenthesis.)" Think of the little clerks and jaded women and overworked people.”
“I can't stand his 'Theatre' -- that's footle -- but the big things -- 'Le Pere Goriot,' 'La Cousine Bette,”
“For the last fourteen years the bulk of policy debate has been not about how we address the organic issues facing an economy and society like that of the UK, but how we footle around at the edges of it, creating projects that may, tangentially, affect someone somewhere, but in all probability not.”
“Not only that, but the sort of things he would say in his sleep would be things like, "The opening up of trade routes to the mumble mumble burble was the turning point for the growth of empire in the snore footle mumble.”
“I've heard that footle before, "said Cotton, with his heavy selfishness.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘footle’.
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phrontistery - f
from phrontistery.info
fabaceous, fabiform, fabulist, faburden, face-cord, facetiae, facia, facinorous, factious, factitious, factitive, factive and 418 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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VVCle
Look at the list for examples
doodle, google, beetle, sheeple, steeple, poodle, noodle, needle, feeble, bamboozle, rootle, creeple and 11 more...
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logos's list
A poor pathetic thing, but mine own.
invidious, lugubriousness, vilify, noisome, synastry, front and center, declension, conjugation, regnal, diphthong, circumlocution, bishopric and 141 more...
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msc's Words
pugilist, threepeat, bloviate, palaver, syncreism, pastiche, eschatology, peripatetic, glossolalia, busker, nudnik, troglodyte and 213 more...
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Words I Like
Random vocabulary words that I am particularly fond of.
absquatulate, anthropophagy, bibliobibuli, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, brobdingnagian, brummagem, bugaboo, callipygian, cataglottism, chiaroscuro and 92 more...
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SAVED FAVES
Listless no more,
arrears, addle, akimbo, allure, appurtenance, bibelot, bibulous, bifurcate, blither, boodle, crapulous, coprolite and 122 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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Oddball Opposites
headweak, uppour, breathful, downbraid, footquarters, happysack, dayjar, handloose, gogap, bookstationary, whitestrap, beforemath and 160 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.biffy, bibcock, barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibliobibuli, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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Nakoo's list of beautiful words.
Just about any word I like at the time.
razbliuto, anaxiphilia, lipothymous, inamorata, acushla, abulia, serendipity, alexithymia, quixotic, idiosyncratic, ad nauseam, equanimity and 305 more...
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Pleasing words
A list of miscellaneous words, fitting in no exact theme, that I happen to enjoy.
portmanteau, aesthetic, deviation, conglomerate, treachery, soluble, bildungsroman, soliloquy, irrevocable, effervescent, phrontistery, aeipathy and 180 more...
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whigmaleeries
naumachy, skeesicks, barghest, catoblepas, bunyip, bellwether, gadabout, footle, aestival, brannigan, brabble, kilkenny cats and 6 more...
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Humbug and bafflegab
oil, rot, gas, gup, pop, jive, bull, jazz, guff, pish, tosh, flam and 83 more...
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Diet
scamp, plucky, countenance, toddle, wither, jade, bobbish, obtuse, fatuity, puisne, insipid, palpable and 66 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for footle.

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