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Loiter   /lˈɔɪtər/   Listen
Loiter

verb
(past & past part. loitered; pres. part. loitering)
1.
Be about.  Synonyms: footle, hang around, lallygag, linger, loaf, lollygag, lounge, lurk, mess about, mill about, mill around, tarry.  "Who is this man that is hanging around the department?"



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"Loiter" Quotes from Famous Books



... I know you will be a good boy," his mother said. "And mind you don't loiter or play truant, for if you do, these shoes will pinch you horribly, and you'll be ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... art there is ample space for every kind of digression and by-issue. I maintain that the mere absence of this self-conscious vibrating pressure upon one string gives to a book that amplitude, that nonchalance, that huge friendly discursiveness, which enables us to breathe and loiter and move around and see the characters from all sides—from behind as well as from in front! The constant playing upon that one string of a symbolic purpose or a philosophical formula seems to me to lead invariably to a certain attenuation and strain. The imagination grows weary ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... ass's back. I have scales and weights and all we want, so we can take them with us and thou wilt have nothing to do but to hold the scales and pouch the price; for here we have fish worth twenty dinars. So be fast with the frails and loiter not." Answered the Caliph, "I hear and obey" and mounting, left him with his fish, and spurred his mule, in high good humour, and ceased not laughing over his adventures with the Fisherman, till he came up to Ja'afar, who said to him, "O Commander of the Faithful, belike, when thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... at one place long enough to digest impressions before pushing on towards a fresh point. This valley is so strangely picturesque, so full of the curiosities of nature and bygone art, that if I had not been a loiterer before, I should have learnt to loiter here. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... unusually large, reminding him of the wonderful animal he had seen bring Balthasar and Iras to the fountain in the Grove of Daphne. There could be no other like it. Thinking then of the fair Egyptian, insensibly his gait became slower, and at length fell into the merest loiter, until finally he could discern a curtained houdah, and two persons seated within it. If they were Balthasar and Iras! Should he make himself known to them? But it could not be: this was the Desert—and they were alone. But while ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... death and powder. Among them German medics squat. The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. Broken carts stand at roadsides. Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter At a scorched wooden fence. And orderlies are already moving From regiment ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... very different thing than drawing Barford Gorses. Anybody may see a fox found at the gorses who will simply take the trouble to be with the hounds when they go into the covert; but in the wood it becomes a great question with a sportsman whether he will stick to the pack or save his horse and loiter about till he hears that a fox has been found. The latter is certainly the commoner course, and perhaps the wiser. And even when the fox has been found it may be better for the expectant sportsman to loiter about till he breaks, giving some little attention to the part of the wood ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... if he would be strict and cross, and if the lessons would be very difficult. But he was quite decided on one point, that he would much rather be going to school every day, and have something to do, than loiter away his time in the house and ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code

... around a little, and you will be surprised to find how soon the habit of prompt rising will become easy. You have your morning duties to perform, or your lessons to learn. If you say to yourself, when it is time you should begin, "I will not loiter, but immediately set about my work or study," you will find in the very act and determination a help and strength, and pleasure even, which you can never imagine before you have experienced it. God has so made us that in ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett

... not yet over, although at that time we trusted that there would be healing for my dear brother in the very air of the Hague. We landed on a fine August evening, and were at once recognized by some of the English gentlemen who had little to do but to loiter about the quays and see the barges come in. It rejoiced my heart to hear my brother called Lord Walwyn again, instead of by his French title. Yet therewith, it was a shock to see how changed they thought him since he had left them a year ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 'and we have not taken in that direction lately. What is your opinion of Bethnal Green?' Mortimer assented to Bethnal Green, and they turned eastward. 'Now, when we come to St Paul's churchyard,' pursued Eugene, 'we'll loiter artfully, and I'll show you the schoolmaster.' But, they both saw him, before they got there; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, on the opposite ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... but, by stopping to get your errand, you may learn more than by being in such a hurry. Stop in at Mrs. Green's, and ask how the people liked the lecture of the strange parson, last evening—and ask her if she can lend me a watering-pot, Now, run, and be back as soon as possible. Never loiter when you ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... its comfortable resting-places where sun and shade played together. Inviting as it all was, however, she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only occasionally did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this more restful scene. She kept on looking for lambs. But after a while she awoke to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she ought to be keeping out on the prairie; instead ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... what is better than to meet the day as it comes over the mountains, and silence breaks here and there, in the houses and streets, in the fields and the vineyards? Let old age, which has played its part and taken to the wings of the stage, let old age loiter in the morning, but not green years. Gretchen awoke as the birds awoke, with snatches and little trills of song. To her nearest neighbors there was about her that which reminded them of the regularity of a good clock; when they ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... and Don Luiz stamped upon the floor. 'You are too slow of speech, senor. Miguel, make him speak. I have no time to loiter here!'" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... who is all should seem to them as nothing, and that which is nothing should seem to them as good as all; that God should set mankind in such a race where heaven or hell is their certain end, and that they should sit down, and loiter, or run after the childish toys of the world, and so much forget the prize that they should run for. Were it but possible for one of us to see the whole of this business as the all-seeing God doth; to see at one view both heaven and hell, which men are ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... on the terrace tomorrow morning; the peacocks will make the meeting natural enough. I usually loiter away an hour or two there, in the sunny ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... though my slumber was gone by, This dream it would not pass away— It seems to live upon my eye! And thence I vowed this self-same day With music strong and saintly song To wander through the forest bare, Lest aught unholy loiter there." ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... seruristo. Lodge (small house) dometo. Lodge (dwell) logxi. Lodger luanto. Lodgings logxejo. Loft (corn) grenejo. Loftiness (character) nobleco. Lofty altega. Log sxtipo. Logarithm logaritmo. Logic logiko. Logogriph logogrifo. Loins lumboj. Loiter vagi. Lone, lonely sola. Loneliness soleco. Long longa. Long for sopiri pri. Longitude longo. Long time longatempe. Long while longatempe. Look mieno, vizagxo. Look at rigardi. Look for sercxi. Looking-glass spegulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... unforeseen conclusion those who have once been simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems to say, with ironic scorn, "A ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... began with that—at least, according to my notion. No, I can't accept. I can't afford to loiter about in Budapest, and have everything here go to ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... is the river as it glideth by, Frost-pearl'd are all the boughs of forests old, The sheep are huddling close upon the wold, And over them the stars tremble on high. Pure joys these winter nights around me lie; 'Tis fine to loiter through the lighted streets At Christmas-time, and guess from brow and pace The doom and history of each one we meet, What kind of heart beats in each dusky case; Whiles, startled by the beauty of a face In a shop-light a moment. Or instead, To dream of silent fields where ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... of Ecclesiasticus: Man is prone to evil from his youth, did he say, Which sentence may well be verified in us. Myself, my brother, and sister Dalilah, Whom our parents to their cost to school do find. I tarry for them here, time passeth away, I lose my learning, they ever loiter behind. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... baron," said the hag, with a smile of grisly mockery; "summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the scourge and the dungeon. But know, mighty chief," she continued, suddenly changing her tone, "thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience at their hands. Listen to these horrid ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... cries the severed father, Why dost thou loiter, cling to life, and doat? Hang on this rowan; hast thou not thy girdle ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, from what the conductor could tell me. If they did, then they'll be nabbed up there, for Sawyer is a wise one, and had that planned," said Callahan. "I'll just loiter around the station a while to see any familiar faces. You can go back to your ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... for they think that if such a thing were to happen, the discussion, like the spindle, would move in a circle and never be wound up. In some of the East Indian islands any one who comes to the house of a hunter must walk straight in; he may not loiter at the door, for were he to do so, the game would in like manner stop in front of the hunter's snares and then turn back, instead of being caught in the trap. For a similar reason it is a rule with the Toradjas of Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... to-day with bended head, My task undone, my garden overspread With baneful weeds. Am I the lord thereof? Or mine own slave, without the power to doff My misery's badge? Am I so weak withal, That I must loiter, though the bugle's call Shrills o'er the moor, the far-off weltering moor, Where foemen meet to ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... directly behind him. There was not a human being in sight. Even policemen do not loiter in empty streets. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... nor let me loiter in my song, For we have many a mountain-path to tread, And many a varied shore to sail along, By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led— Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head[et] Imagined in its little schemes of thought;[eu] Or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... Stuck it out through a back window into a lilac bush, and we'll pick it up at our leisure. You may not have noticed that this old pile is built up against an abandoned mill. We shall loiter back to the inn carrying the loot quite boldly with us. You might lug it yourself as I'm a little warm from digging the thing up—Leary had burrowed under the wood bin and hidden ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... Sweet silence there for the harp, Where loiter the ewes and the lambs In the moss and the rushes, Where one's song goes sounding up! And the rocks re-echo it higher and higher In the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... yet two, so I had plenty of time. But you will believe that I didn't loiter on that account. I dashed out of the loge—into the street—down the Boulevard St. Michel—into the Bleu, breathlessly. At the far end Nina was seated before a marble table, with Madame Chanve in smiles and tears beside her. I heard a little cry; I felt myself seized and enveloped for ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... hear the bell, and open his door down at the end of the corridor; and sometimes a lodger, who occupied a room looking into the last-mentioned court, would draw, slyly, a corner of his curtain, and peep out, to see who was passing. Sometimes I would loiter myself to look down upon the lower windows in the court, or to glance up at story resting above story, and at the peaked roof, and dot of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... whose chief duty was to watch the big waterway. How their eyes would pop if they could see through the padlocked door of his prison! But he had no inclination to be discovered now. He wanted to go on, and with a growing exultation he saw there was no intention on the part of the bateau's crew to loiter on the way. There was no stop at noon, and the tie-up did not come until the last glow of day was darkening into the gloom of night in the sky. For sixteen hours the bateau had traveled steadily, and it could not ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... ear is full of summer sounds, Of summer sights my languid eye; Beyond the dusty village bounds I loiter in my daily rounds, And ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... cow-herd should lead him to the fields. If without manifesting any inclination for going to the fields he likes to loiter within the village he should not be employed. Similarly the barber's duties require his presence within the village. If without being present there he likes to wander in the woods, he should never be employed, for it may then be presumed that he ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... depth, yet this is the ford. Just below it runs far over man's head, with swift undercurrent. He who once is caught in it rises not again until the crossing is reached, far below." Said Dentatsu, scared and annoyed—"Why loiter then in such a dangerous place?"—"Because just now the world is Jimbei's world." The tone of voice, the look up he gave, froze ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... conditions of the nobles in various parts of Italy. In Naples they will not work, and busy themselves neither with their own estates nor with trade and commerce, which they hold to be discreditable; they either loiter at home or ride about on horseback. The Roman nobility also despise trade, but farm their own property; the cultivation of the land even opens the way to a title; it is a respectable but boorish nobility. In Lombardy the nobles live upon the rent of their inherited estates; descent ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... as the hours flew by and the boulevard became empty, Germinie, exhausted, overdone with weariness, would approach the houses. She would loiter from shop to shop, she would go mechanically where gas was still burning, and stand stupidly in the bright glare from the shop windows. She welcomed the dazzling light in her eyes, she tried to allay her impatience by benumbing it. The objects to be seen through the perspiring windows ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... elders, to be also given a sack, and now one and all have learnt at the least alarm to put on their masks. There is no need to tell the children to hurry home. They realise that it is not wise to loiter in the streets for fear of the whistling shells. They are remarkably plucky, these small ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke

... "Well well, Francois," said he, "whether good-looking or beautiful matters little, for it's not likely that we shall ever see them again, so the less you think about them the better.—Allons! we are late enough and must not loiter." ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne

... him to the barrier; advising him as they ran, as he would go, to string his bow and loosen an arrow in the girdle, and above all, not to loiter, or let his horse walk, but to keep him at as sharp a trot as he could. The fact that so many wealthy persons had assembled at the castle for the feast would be sure to be known to the banditti (the outlaws of the cities and the escaped serfs). They ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... what? Tell you why I loiter by our soldiers' camps like any painted drab? I will tell you this much; I need no ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... out to spend our time in eatin'," Jacob said, moodily, and I understood full well what was in his mind. "We can loiter when we have come ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... to loiter on her way home. There was much temptation to at this time of the year, when the meadows on either side of the road were so brimful of grass and flowers, when the air was so sweet, and so many birds were singing. There was a brook on the way, ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... hurry, however. He was not now in pursuit of any one, and could afford to loiter and ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... enough for the trip, but only good time, before the roads will be closed by the dry stages growing to impossible lengths for the bullocks to recross; and if the waggoners lose sight of their goal, and loiter by the way, they will find themselves "shut in" inside, with no prospect of getting out until the next Wet ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... aside, as unworthy of him, the love of plunder, which has often been the insidious bane of the Roman soldier, and that every one should keep steadily to his own troop and his own standard, when the necessity for fighting arises, knowing that should he loiter anywhere he will be hamstrung and left to his fate. I fear nothing of our over-crafty enemies ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... despite her sudden feeling of kinship to these people of the slums, she did not loiter. For she was the bearer of a message, a message of hope! She wished, as she sped through the crowded streets, that her feet were winged so that she might hurry the faster! She wanted to see the expression of bewilderment on Mrs. Volsky's face, she ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... pass a tank with two wide nights of steps down to it, banyan trees hang over it, and monkeys gambol on the ground, and about the dusty trunks. Up and down the steps women are passing with stately steps and slow, they loiter at the water's edge and gossip, then fill their dark earthenware bowls, lift them on to their heads with the help of a neighbour, and come slowly up the steps. The little brass bowls they carry on hip or at arm's length glitter with lights ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... said Gerzson, when they had fairly got across to the other side: "Keep your eyes open and try and take in what I am going to say to you. I don't know how long I may remain inside there—possibly some time. At any rate you must not loiter about here with the horses but go on to the priest and beg him, civilly, mind, to kindly accommodate my nags in his stable and give them two bushels of maize. As soon as I return I'll settle with him, but don't say anything about payment, or else you ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... this hope led her into new sorrows, and, as usual, paved the way for disappointment. Ann only felt gratitude; her heart was entirely engrossed by one object, and friendship could not serve as a substitute; memory officiously retraced past scenes, and unavailing wishes made time loiter. ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... to him a little; and sometimes one or two of the patients from the eye-ward would grow tired of sitting about in the garden-alleys, and would loiter in, if Lois would give them leave; but their talk wearied him, jarred him as strangely as if one had begun on politics and price-currents to the silent souls in Hades. It was enough thought for him to listen to the whispered stories of the sisters in the long evenings, and, half-heard, try and ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... be seen leaning half over the river, which has sung beneath them for five hundred years; and it is set in the midst of memories of stirring days. Yet it is not for these that one would revisit the little town, but rather that one might walk by the still canal under the high trees in spring, or loiter in the market-place round what the Hun has left of the statue of the famous Admiral with his attendant nymphs, or wander down the winding streets that skirt the ancient church and give glimpses of ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... was afoot and on his way to the Ottawa Hotel. He ran fast until within a block of it; then unexpectedly his gait slackened to a walk, finally to a loiter. He became strangely reluctant, strangely bashful about approaching the place. This ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... writes the fourth "AEneid" to make men feel that the palm of victory comes only to those who persevere to the end; that duty does not abdicate in favor of inclination; and that the high gods will not hold guiltless the man who stops short of Italy to loiter and dally in Carthage even in the sunshine of a Dido's smile. When Italy is calling, no siren song of pleasure must avail to lure him from his course, nor must his sail be furled until the keel grates upon ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... chateaux country with a friend; but he would be back in two or three weeks. Now that Elinor had seen Mary, she felt that changes must be made quickly. In other circumstances, it would have been pleasant to loiter about Italy, stopping at the best hotels at Mary's expense, on money that ought to have been the Home-Davises; but as it was, Elinor could think of nothing better to do than to send Mary off by herself, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... go to the other extreme, and wear a defiant, obtrusive kind of indolence which suggests quite as much inward disquiet and unrest. The shiftless lassitude of a gambler can never be mistaken for the lounge of a gentleman. Even the brokers who loiter upon Montgomery Street at high noon are not loungers. Look at them closely and you will see a feverishness and anxiety under the mask of listlessness. They do not lounge—they lie in wait. No surer sign, I imagine, of our peculiar ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... reached once more my northern mountain home, I should find her waiting with a smile, perhaps with just a trillium in her hand to offer me, before she sped on again toward Labrador. But, I thought, I could never know her quite so well again as I had this day; she would not loiter with me quite so familiarly, with her dear, friendly squeeze of my fingers as the childish voices drifted with the brook song down the cove. I had kept tryst with Spring at Thumping Dick, for once the favored of all her ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... of jars and vases filled with gold and precious stones, told them to carry those carefully to the palace of Santa Claus, and give them to him with the compliments of King Frost. "He will know how to make good use of the treasure," added Jack Frost; then he told the fairies not to loiter by the way, but to do ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... looked startled at Casanova's strange figure, but the latter, without stopping or uttering a word, passed him, and descended the stairs, followed by the frightened monk. They did not run, nor did they loiter; Casanova was already, in spirit, beyond the confines of the Venetian Republic. Still followed by the monk, he reached the water-side, stepped into a gondola, and flinging himself down carelessly, promised the rowers more than their fare if they would ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... their guests and take the greatest possible interest in their movements and comfort. We would willingly have spent some days at Marie-aux-Mines—no better headquarters for excursionizing in these regions!—but too much remained for us to do and to see in Alsace. We dared not loiter on the way. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Cutter would live longer than he, and that eventually her 'people,' whom he had always hated so violently, would inherit. Their quarrels on this subject passed the boundary of the close-growing cedars, and were heard in the street by whoever wished to loiter and listen. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... we are thrown back on the old Gibraltar scheme with its shifting of steamers ... unless we take the dreary alternative of Madeira!—or Cadiz! Even suppose Madeira, ... why it were for a few months alone—and there would be no temptation to loiter as in Italy. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... between sleeping and waking, a pair of pigeons flew past his window, their shadows falling across his bed. An Arab came to conduct him to his bath; and after bathing he returned to his room, glad to get into its sunlight again, and to loiter in his dressing, standing by the window, admiring the garden below, full of faint perfume. The roses were already in blossom, and through an opening in the ilex-trees he caught sight of a meadow overflowing with shadow, the shadow of trees ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... came over! Such jolting and sliding! I begged to get off and walk; but as the whole way was carpeted by strawberry vines and there were late berries to tempt me to loiter, I had to stay on the wagon. I had no idea a wagon could ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... let us pray; the mercy-seat Invites the fervent prayer, And Jesus ready stands to greet The contrite spirit there; Oh, loiter not, nor longer stay From him who loves us; ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes

... her fall, like any rill. We here left its channel, just above the Billerica Falls, and entered the canal, which runs, or rather is conducted, six miles through the woods to the Merrimack, at Middlesex, and as we did not care to loiter in this part of our voyage, while one ran along the tow-path drawing the boat by a cord, the other kept it off the shore with a pole, so that we accomplished the whole distance in little more than ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... consolation. There was but one subject which interested him, and only on one subject could he be got to speak, and that was the chances there still remained of Jerrem's life being spared; and to furnish him with some food for this hope, Eve began to loiter at the gates, talk to the warders and the turnkeys, and mingle with the many groups who on some business or pretext were always assembled about the yard or stood idling in the various passages with which the prison ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... herbage broke the barren flats of land, No winds dared loiter within smiling trees, Nor were there any brooks on either hand, Only the dry, bright sand, Naked and golden, ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet

... and German were posted, embodying regulations governing the village under Prussian military rule. The few inhabitants of Morsbronn who had remained in cellars during the bombardment shuffled up to read these notices, or to loiter stupidly, gaping at the Prussian eagles ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... unprecedented situation, and like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "You know you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia and Judith, stay here. I'm going to take you up to the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... the influence of thy grace To speed me in thy way, Lest I should loiter in my race, Or turn my ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... street Every Lane certainly is very lazy. It sets out just to make a short passage between two thoroughfares, but, though forced first to walk straight by the warehouses that wall in its entrance, it soon begins to loiter, staring down back alleys, yawning into courts, plunging into stable-yards, and at length standing irresolute at three ways of getting to the end of its journey. It passes by artisans' shops, and keeps two or three masons' cellars and carpenters' lofts, as if its slovenly buildings needed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... on the sidewalk nearly opposite the post-office. Each was too much engrossed in the conversation to pay any heed to anything else. If the few passersby thought it strange that the schoolmistress should care to loiter out of doors on that cold and disagreeable morning, they said nothing about it. One young man in particular, who, standing just inside the post-office door, was buttoning his overcoat and putting on his gloves, looked earnestly at the ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... gift given to the individual perhaps once in an eternity, is being used without profit, without pause, without wonder. We are like people who have lost their memories on the way to a feast, and our steps, in which is only dimly felt the remembrance of a purpose, take us nowhither. We loiter in musty waiting-rooms, are frustrated by mobs, and foiled by an eternal clamour. We have forgotten the feast and occupy ourselves in all manner of foolish and irrelevant ways. Only now and again, struck by the absurdity of our occupations, we grope after our lost consciousness and ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... greenwood girl and boy Had loiter'd to their lure, And men in cities closed their books To dream of Spring and running brooks And all that ever was of joy For manhood ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q

... don't loiter," directed Father Blossom. "Go straight home and tell Mother if I can I'll be back for supper, but ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley

... verily 'burning;' and may burn,—to what lengths and breadths! Much, in these hours, depends on Bouille; as it shall now fare with him, the whole Future may be this way or be that. If, for example, he were to loiter dubitating, and not come: if he were to come, and fail: the whole Soldiery of France to blaze into mutiny, National Guards going some this way, some that; and Royalism to draw its rapier, and Sansculottism to snatch its pike; and the Spirit if ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... During the first few days after her removal to the new home, she went almost crazy at not seeing you. You, too, seemed to have discovered her new address somehow, as you used to lose your way after starting for college, and loiter about in front of Sripati's house. Your eyes did not appear to be exactly in search of the Presidency College, as they were directed towards the barred windows of a private house, through which nothing but insects ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... which should be driver, an' it was always Peter that won his way wi' them. Is the cab there, Tillie? Then gie me my crutch. Hester, are you ready? Jean, I'll find oot for ye all aboot the trains for Dover. Ye maun gang direc' an' no loiter by the way. Come, Hester. I doot she ought not to be goin' aboot alone. Paris is an' awfu' like place for a woman body to be goin' aboot alone. But it canna' be helpit. What's an old woman like me wi' only one sound leg and a pair o' crutches, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... trip West, the long months' loiter along the California coast, and the gray house near Greenwich where they lived until late autumn made the country dreary—those days, those places, saw the enraptured hours. The breathless idyl of their engagement gave way, first, to the intense romance of the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... sharing a loaf of bread; two others were walking their mounts up and down, leading them by the bridle, not knowing where to look for stabling for them; officers were hurrying to and fro distractedly, seemingly without any distinct purpose. On the Place Turenne a lieutenant counseled him not to loiter unnecessarily, for the shells had an unpleasant way of dropping there every now and then; indeed, a splinter had just demolished the railing about the statue of the great commander who overran the Palatinate. And as if to emphasize the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... hours' detention was all-important to us, and if we loiter here, of what use will be the advantage that we may have ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... there, in snug contentment, on the car's front seat; awaiting the return of his deity and keeping a watchful eye on anyone who chanced to loiter near the machine. Presently, he sat up. Leaning out, from one side of the seat, he stared down the hot roadway, in a direction whence a babel of highly exciting sounds began ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... too late. The red-coated official posted her letter, and pointed out the proper place for the newspaper. At two minutes to six anxious people began to run while yet in the street. Cool personages, seeing the clock, and feeling safe, affected an easy nonchalance, but did not loiter. One minute to six—eager looks were on the faces of those who, from all sides, converged towards the great receiving-box. The active sprang up the wide stairs at a bound, heaved in their bundles, or packets, or single missives, and heaved sighs of relief after them; the timid ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... not, Paullus, ere they have reached the camp. They were nigh to Volsinii at noon yesterday; of course they will not loiter on the way." ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... kind of work which Jesus did. He frankly made a selection of the people to whom he should minister.[30] He knew no phrases about all men being equal, and he made no profession of impartiality such as today causes many ministers to loiter among the well-to-do, who care not for them. Jesus said he had no time to spend with well people, because he was sent to the sick. But the philosophy of his action was seen in the fact that when he ministered to the sick he himself helped the well. He "preached ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... do to loiter when we've arrived within a dozen or two miles of the city," he remarked, and they all admitted the ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... a sneaking feeling that all this modern fuss about "art" and the "creative vision" and "the projection of visualized images," is the itching vice of quite a different class of people, from those who, in the old, sweet, epicurean way, loved to loiter through huge digressive books, with the ample unpremeditated enjoyment of leisurely travelers wayfaring along a wonderful road. How many luckless innocents have teased and fretted their minds into a forced appreciation of that artistic ogre Flaubert, and his laborious pursuit of his precious ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... leagues, from which it is separated by pleasant and fertile meadows. The banks of this canal, which was begun by Carlos Tercero, and has never been completed, are planted with beautiful trees, and form the most delightful walk in the neighbourhood of the capital. Here I would loiter for hours looking at the shoals of gold and silver fish which basked on the surface of the green sunny waters, or listening, not to the warbling of birds—for Spain is not the land of feathered choristers—but to the prattle of the narangero or man who sold oranges and water by a ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Otherwise you would be a cook, as I was once, and earn thirty sous a day. You would be washing dishes, and your mistress would send you to market—do you understand—and she would turn you out if you loitered, just as you loiter, now because I am—because I lead this life. Listen. When a person is only a nursemaid, a poor girl, with fifty francs saved up, she must know how to manage, if she does not want to starve to death; and there are not two ways for us, there ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... growing wearier and more empty with every step. The worst of it was, the orders were beginning to assume the form of a schedule, and commanded that he be here at 3:15, and there at 4:05; and so on, which forbade loitering, had he been inclined to loiter. In it all he could see no purpose, except the possible one of trying his physical endurance. He was a strong boy, or he would have been quite exhausted long before he reached envelope No. 17, which was the last but three of ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... you of his journey and bid you not come to Dover till he sends for you. This letter he entrusted to a messenger of my Lord Arlington's who was taking the road for London. But the Secretary's messengers know when to hasten and when to loiter on the way. You are to have set out ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... few strangers; his play had begun. And he—he, the god who moved all this machinery—he, whose divine fire was warming all that great house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to loiter in the corridors! But for the rumblings of applause that reached him he could ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... should have as soon thought of flying to Schandau through the air, as of marching one-and-twenty more; but as the old proverb expresses it, "Necessity has no law." Every approach of fatigue was accordingly resisted by the aid of reflection; which suggested, truly enough, that to loiter, would involve us in difficulties and embarrassments, which, however transient they might be, could not fail of annoying us while they operated. But as we drew towards Greiffenberg, we remembered that it had been described as a large and thriving town, and a large and thriving town, we conceived, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... him, you must make haste," she said, breathlessly; "he is walking townward with Mr. Lamotte; intends to loiter about the town and take ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... past your ears, that is all. Occasionally there is a report like a gunshot, and then you observe a little cloud of dust rising from a new scar on a rock. If you are hit—well, there is no dust, because the stone goes right through. Of course one does not loiter there." ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... and in places, peasants were scratching the dismal surfaces with the sort of plows which Abel must have used, when subsoiling was not yet even a dream; and between the plowmen and their ox-teams it seemed a question as to which should loiter longest in the unfinished furrow. Now and then, the rush of the train gave a motionless goatherd, with his gaunt flock, an effect of comparative celerity to the rearward. The ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... brawny young Scotchmen, whose dialect was as Greek to the mistress of the Abbey House. It wounded her not a little to see these strangers at work in her grounds. It gave an aspect of strangeness to her very life out of doors. She hardly cared to go into her conservatories, or to loiter on her lawn, with those hard unfamiliar eyes looking at her. And it wrung her heart to think of the Squire's old servants thrust out in their old age, unpensioned, uncared for. Yet this was a change that had come about with her knowledge, and, seemingly, with ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... of that," returned the woman. "I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... are built with large pavements,' he told her, 'so that jostling may be avoided, and there are many open spaces where people may loiter and congregate; the bonnets exhibited in the plate-glass windows, you can see, are obviously intended for holiday wear.' She stopped to look at these. 'Not one,' he said, 'is as pretty as the one ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... guide too well to let me loiter as I wished. "These fissures are the chief danger," he said; and, holding out his small hand, he grasped mine with the tenacity of one not accustomed to let anything slip through his fingers. A girdle of imperfectly ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society

... eyes and brushing away cobwebs of dream, before buckling down to the struggle. The one somewhat reminiscent of Egypt and crocodiles, lisping palms and Arabs, of long and lotos-eating days of keff, in which even the lazy hours loiter in shady nooks, and the wind holds its breath in sympathy with the general doziness, and seems to be listening to something; the other of vivid Greek life, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven by the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce at Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha was troubled as to ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... carved the chicken-pie, and his humorous allusion to the merry thought; or dwell upon the salad compounded by Mr. Moggridge, the spider that was found in it, and the conundrum composed upon that singular occurrence; or loiter to tell how Miss Lavinia upset the claret cup over the Vicar's coat-tails, and, in her confusion, said it "did not signify," which was very amusing. On this, and more, would she blithely discourse, did not ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... do not loiter over your toilet. If your braided hair has loosened, if the parting of your hair be not straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind. Come as you are; do ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... be helped! My father expects me; I can't loiter any longer. However, you can read Pelouse et Fremy, Notions generales de Chimie; it's a good book, and clearly written. You will find everything ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... the hearts of men: Though in Nirvana or the Heavenly courts The principle of beauty shall persist, Its body of poetry, as the body of man, Is but a terrene form, a terrene use, That swifter being will not loiter with; And, when mankind is dead and the world cold, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... Being of a conscientious turn of mind, he entered each establishment in succession and meeting now and again various acquaintances, he felt compelled to proffer and accept numerous glasses of the favorite morning beverage—white wine. Turn which way he would, however, loiter as long as he might, there were still no signs of Lecoq. He was returning in haste, a trifle uneasy on account of the length of his absence, when he perceived a cab pull up in front of the Palais gateway. A second glance, and oh, great good fortune, he saw Lecoq, Father Absinthe, and the virtuous ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... morning was still very vivid in his mind. He began to fear his mother's censure for his delay, too, for Mistress Harding brought up her children to strict obedience and Enoch, man though he felt himself to be because of this day's work, knew he had no business to loiter until after dark in ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... indolence, resigned to sleep and repasts. All the most brave, all the most warlike, apply to nothing at all; but to their wives, to the ancient men, and to even the most impotent domestic, trust all the care of their house, and of their lands and possessions. They themselves loiter. Such is the amazing diversity of their nature, that in the same men is found so much delight in sloth, with so much enmity to tranquillity and repose. The communities are wont, of their own accord and man by man, to bestow upon their Princes a certain number of beasts, ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus

... days she had all to give, nothing to fear or withhold. She was at peace. She was ready to stop, to stand here in her life for always—here in the glowing garden with him, and their youth. But he was impatient. He did not want to loiter in the morning. He was hot to hurry on out of the present which was so mysterious, so untried to her, as if these ecstasies had no mystery to him but their complete fulfilment. He filled her with a trembling premonition of ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... in conversation, and in proper sports, and amusement, and go away in the morning. On such occasions a female attendant of the King (previously acquainted with the woman whom the King desires), should loiter about, and accost this woman when she sets out to go home, and induce her to come and see the amusing things in the palace. Previous to these festivals even, she should have caused it to be intimated to this woman that on the occasion of this festival ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana

... under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; I loiter ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... quiet. Chicago lay dead. There was no roar and rumble of traffic. There were not even cabs on the streets. The surface cars and the elevated were not running. Only occasionally, on the sidewalks, were there stray pedestrians, and these pedestrians did not loiter. They went their ways with great haste and definiteness, withal there was a curious indecision in their movements, as though they expected the buildings to topple over on them or the sidewalks to sink under their feet or fly up in the air. A few gamins, ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... philanthropists,—all making their own market at the fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. It was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars and observe the various sorts of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hundred dollars of it would go to Mother Howard,—for that debt must be paid off first. And, that accomplished, denying himself the invitation of rest that his bed held forth for him, he started out into town, apparently to loiter about the streets and receive the congratulations of the towns-people, but in reality to watch for one person and one ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... bargained with a barrow-man to carry me for a few miles. My coolies took it as a fine joke, and after starting me off trotted on behind, but my military escort looked troubled. No longer striding proudly in front, he showed a desire to loiter behind, although so long as my grand chair kept close at my heels he could save his face by explaining my strange proceeding as the mad freak of a foreigner. But finally, when I bade the chair-men stop for a smoke at a rest-house, knowing they could easily overtake my slow-moving ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... feel its benefit in the marrow of my bones and still deeper. I no longer run away from the sun. I have been more than forty years in Brazil, and I too often wonder how things look in the old town—whether they still loiter about the well, whether Hannah is still living, and how this one and that one is getting along. But—they have probably got along very much as I have myself, well and ill; they have grown old, if they are not dead already, and they are probably ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... are kept so warm with stoves that there but little suffering is known. But woe to the men who loiter in the streets when they are paved with ice and glistening with snow! The passengers run for their lives, with the sharp wind rushing after them, as a cat after a mouse! Men cover even their faces with fur; but should an unlucky nose peep out from the warm shelter, the bitter frost often bites ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys here below! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell.... Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... month will finish the trading, for the ships will want to start with their freight, while the weather is fine. True, the Indians and many of the coureurs de bois will loiter about until the last moment. There is to be a great Indian dance, I hear. They generally break up with one that has a good deal of savagery in it, but this early one is quite mild, I have understood, and gives ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... daughters, Such as the man desires whose bosom is govern'd by prudence And I venture to think the good creature is fortunate also. Yes, she will ever be grateful that I her father and mother Have restored her in you, as sensible children would wish it. But I will loiter no longer; I'll straightway harness the horses, And conduct our friends on the traces of her whom I love so, Leave the men to themselves and their own intuitive wisdom, And be guided alone by their decision—I swear it,— ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... it off till after dinner, that I might loiter longer and with more luxurious indolence over it, and connect it with the thoughts of my next ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... rarely see men and women talking or sitting together. The women seem perfectly content with the company of their own sex. The men who loiter about with spears in most lazy fashion are seldom seen in the society of the opposite sex.... The Ojebwey, Peter Jones, thus writes of his own people: "I have scarcely ever seen anything like social intercourse ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... you!" was the answering cry. "And then you laugh in my face! We saw you—all three of you—just now!" The note was so high that one of the pilots began to loiter down ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... of his time, at some periods of his reign, in idle amusements, lounging about his palace, playing at tennis in the tennis court like a boy, and then weighing himself afterward to see how much he was gaining. In the afternoons and evenings he would loiter in the rooms of his favorites while they were finishing their dressing, gamble at cards, and often would get very much intoxicated at wild midnight carousals. He would ramble in the mall and in the parks, and feed the aquatic birds upon the ponds there, day after day, with all the interest ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... came against a wall of mystery. Was the Frog at the bottom of it? But why did he always loiter in the background and never openly molest us? There was something more terrifying about this silent, skulking foe than there would have been about an armed highwayman. So far to-day he had not appeared, but we did not doubt ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... great temptation to loiter about in the lovely fresh morning air, but I have to be dressed in time for prayers and breakfast at nine; directly after breakfast I go into the kitchen; sometimes, it is only necessary to give orders or instructions, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... lit her splendid lamp In the broad meadow lush and damp, Where loves the brook in loops to loiter, And tufted vernal to pitch ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand

... novel over the fire? Shall I take life at second-hand and work up an interest in imaginary loves and the exigencies of shadows? What are all the firesides and fictions of the world to me that I should loiter here and doze, doze, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... was called the "balance of power" was only an idle dream; that, unless some master-mind could be found which was a match for events, the millions would rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the situation; and like William Pitt, he did not loiter around balancing the probabilities of failure or success, or dally with his purpose. There was no turning to the right nor to the left; no dreaming away time, nor building air-castles; but one look and purpose, forward, upward and onward, straight to ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden



Words linked to "Loiter" :   be, footle, lurch, prowl



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