do-nothing

English

Etymology

Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb, but from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a clausal phrase.

Adjective

do-nothing

1. (attributive) Doing nothing, not taking any action.
   • 2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Castlefield conundrum”, in Rail, page 31:

     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.

Noun

do-nothing (plural do-nothings)

1. A lazy person.

   Synonyms: (archaic) do-naught, faineant, slacker; see also Thesaurus:idler

Derived terms

• do-nothingism
• do-nothingness

Translations

lazy person

• Finnish: laiskuri (fi), laiskamato (fi)

See also

• know-nothing

References

• “do-nothing”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.