Word of the Day: Idle/Idol/Idyll

Idle

i-dle / ˈīdl

 

adjective

 

1. not active or employed

It is only idle people who can find time for everything.

French Proverb

 

2. not spent in activity or work

I would love to get a place out in the country and spend my idle time just remodeling and planting seeds and watching them grow.

Joe Lando, 1961-

 

3. unused

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.

Henry Miller, 1891-1980

 

4. lacking worth; frivolous

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

 

5. lazy

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

Buddha, c. 480-c.400 BC

 

verb

 

1. to do nothing

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

Jerome K. Jerome, 1859-1927

 

2. of a machine, to operate at low power so that it cannot do useful work

We passed laws to prohibit cars and buses from idling their engines and to retrofit school buses with diesel pollution controls.

Sheldon Whitehouse, 1955-

 

 

noun

 

1. a person or people who are lazy

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in your temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

Charles Kingsley, 1819-1875

 

 

 

Idol

i-dol / ˈīdl

 

noun

 

1. an object of extreme devotion

The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.

Washington Irving, 1783-1859

 

2. a representation or symbol of a deity

An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.

Aiden Wilson Tozer, 1897-1963

 

3. a form which lacks substance

No good can come of it – it is not well

To meet it – it is an enchanted phantom,

A lifeless idol…

From ‘Scenes from the Faust of Goethe’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822

 

4. a fallacy

[Francis Bacon] called the wide variety of errors in mental processing the Idols of the Mind. There were four idols: Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Cave, Idols of the Marketplace, and Idols of the Theater.

https://fs.blog/2016/05/francis-bacon-four-idols-mind/

 

 

Idyll

i-dyll / ˈīdl

 

noun

 

1. a descriptive piece of poetry or prose that focuses on rustic country life, pastoral scenes, or has an overall mood of tranquility

His surviving work can mostly be found within an old compendium of 30 poems known as the “Idylls of Theocritus.”

https://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls1.html

 

2. a charmingly simple scene

As a child, I wanted to marry a farmer, but no doubt the reality would have been very different to the idyll in my head.

Jane Asher, 1946-

 

3. a brief romantic affair

The more enchanted the idyll, greater must be the pain of its ending.

Georgette Heyer, 1902-1974