dawdle

When you’re moving tons of food at the edge of its usefulness — an average of 250,000 pounds or 125 tons every day — no one can afford to dawdle.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2024

If a few passengers dawdle while stowing their bag and finding their seat, it can make the difference between a flight being on time or late in the government’s official statistics.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 19, 2023

Allison said it’s important for investigators not to dawdle.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 25, 2023

And while there's still a need for a similarly big player to volumize Kernza sales, smaller companies can keep farmers growing the crop while consumer packaged goods companies dawdle on the sidelines.

From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2023

I had no idea how fast Sputnik would be, whether it would zip along or dawdle.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

If Minnesota dawdles, it “will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year,” the CMS head said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026

It is the role of prosecutors to vindicate that interest by initiating judicial action when a defendant dawdles.

From Slate ● Oct. 7, 2024

The story dawdles through its first and second acts, but in its final third does find a more deliberate pace.

From New York Times ● Nov. 29, 2022

Weyman’s cloak-and-rapier swashbuckler is long — over 400 pages in my edition — but its action never dawdles.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 1, 2021

The Colonel blinks and twitches his nose, and the thing dawdles on.

From At Ypres with Best-Dunkley by Thomas Hope Floyd

While Kelly dawdled for the decisive goal, Bain made a superb save late on to deny Manchester United's Amad Diallo.

From BBC ● Apr. 1, 2026

Later, at Brasserie de Monaco, the principality’s craft beer brewery, I dawdled over a pint of Blonde de Monaco and fell into conversation with Nils, a Danish skipper.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 10, 2026

Not yet knowing what I was in for, though, I dawdled, thinking the journey too far and impractical, until I finally relented about 20 hours before totality over Idaho.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2024

When No. 23 WSU hosts Northern Colorado this weekend, though, the Cougars will get a chance to sharpen the one part of their offense that has dawdled: The run game.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 15, 2023

“Why have you dawdled so long before paying us a visit?”

From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs

Cut a dawdling fight scene here and an interminable escape scene there, and the film would make a delightful in-universe companion to precede next summer’s “Superman” sequel, “Man of Tomorrow.”

From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026

Like, just in case someone’s dawdling, or being careless about where they’re dumping snow.

From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2026

After Black Rod — Sarah Clarke — raps three times on the door with her staff, lawmakers make their way to the House of Lords, deliberately dawdling and chatting as they go.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 6, 2023

Tropical Storm Hilary engorged the waterway, usually just a dawdling stream during the summer, widening its banks from 15 to 100 feet.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2023

When guests wished a letter delivered faster than the dawdling post riders, he would recommend Johnny.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes