"do-nothing" meaning in English

See do-nothing in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase. Etymology templates: {{m|en|do#Verb|do}} do, {{m|en|nothing#Noun|nothing}} nothing Head templates: {{head|en|adjective|head=do-nothing}} do-nothing
  1. (attributive) doing nothing, not taking any action. Tags: attributive
    Sense id: en-do-nothing-en-adj-60Yxj1mK Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English exocentric verb-noun compounds, English links with manual fragments, English links with redundant alt parameters, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 59 41 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 58 42 Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 56 44 Disambiguation of English links with manual fragments: 56 44 Disambiguation of English links with redundant alt parameters: 58 42 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 58 42

Noun

Forms: do-nothings [plural]
Etymology: Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase. Etymology templates: {{m|en|do#Verb|do}} do, {{m|en|nothing#Noun|nothing}} nothing Head templates: {{en-noun}} do-nothing (plural do-nothings)
  1. A lazy person. Synonyms: do-naught [archaic], faineant, slacker, idler Derived forms: do-nothingism, do-nothingness Related terms: know-nothing Translations (lazy person): laiskuri (Finnish), laiskamato (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-do-nothing-en-noun-IG2OJ19-

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for do-nothing meaning in English (3.5kB)

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        "1": "en",
        "2": "do#Verb",
        "3": "do"
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      "expansion": "do",
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "nothing#Noun",
        "3": "nothing"
      },
      "expansion": "nothing",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "58 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "56 44",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
          "parents": [
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            "Verb-noun compounds",
            "Exocentric compounds",
            "Verb-object compounds",
            "Compound terms",
            "Terms by etymology"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "56 44",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "58 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with redundant alt parameters",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "58 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Castlefield conundrum”, in Rail, page 31",
          "text": "Manchester needs more railway capacity. Just how that is provided until the new platforms are built for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, I will leave for the experts, but a do-nothing approach is not going to be helpful and quite justifiably will create more arguments that the North is being ignored.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "doing nothing, not taking any action."
      ],
      "id": "en-do-nothing-en-adj-60Yxj1mK",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(attributive) doing nothing, not taking any action."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "attributive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do-nothing"
}

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
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        "2": "do#Verb",
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      "args": {
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        "2": "nothing#Noun",
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "do-nothings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "do-nothing (plural do-nothings)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "do-nothingism"
        },
        {
          "word": "do-nothingness"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A lazy person."
      ],
      "id": "en-do-nothing-en-noun-IG2OJ19-",
      "links": [
        [
          "lazy",
          "lazy"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "know-nothing"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "archaic"
          ],
          "word": "do-naught"
        },
        {
          "word": "faineant"
        },
        {
          "word": "slacker"
        },
        {
          "word": "idler"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "lazy person",
          "word": "laiskuri"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "lazy person",
          "word": "laiskamato"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do-nothing"
}
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    "English lemmas",
    "English links with manual fragments",
    "English links with redundant alt parameters",
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  "etymology_text": "Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase.",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Castlefield conundrum”, in Rail, page 31",
          "text": "Manchester needs more railway capacity. Just how that is provided until the new platforms are built for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, I will leave for the experts, but a do-nothing approach is not going to be helpful and quite justifiably will create more arguments that the North is being ignored.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "doing nothing, not taking any action."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(attributive) doing nothing, not taking any action."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "attributive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do-nothing"
}

{
  "categories": [
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    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
    "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
    "English lemmas",
    "English links with manual fragments",
    "English links with redundant alt parameters",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "do-nothingism"
    },
    {
      "word": "do-nothingness"
    }
  ],
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    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb; from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "do-nothings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "do-nothing (plural do-nothings)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "know-nothing"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A lazy person."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "lazy",
          "lazy"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "archaic"
          ],
          "word": "do-naught"
        },
        {
          "word": "faineant"
        },
        {
          "word": "slacker"
        },
        {
          "word": "idler"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "lazy person",
      "word": "laiskuri"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "lazy person",
      "word": "laiskamato"
    }
  ],
  "word": "do-nothing"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (fc4f0c7 and c937495). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.