Dawdle example sentences
Related (9): linger, loiter, dally, procrastinate, delay, stall, lag, tarry, idle
"Dawdle" Example Sentences
Common Phrases
- dawdle away
- dawdle over
- don't dawdle
- dawdle along
- dawdle around
Examples by Level
A1
- Don't dawdle — we must go now.
- She dawdle in the morning every day.
A2
- He dawdle at breakfast and made us late for school.
- If you dawdle too much, you'll miss the bus.
B1
- I noticed him dawdle by the window, clearly avoiding the conversation.
- She tends to dawdle when she's anxious about something.
B2
- He'd begun to dawdle through his responsibilities, and nobody seemed to notice or care.
- There's something almost defiant about the way teenagers dawdle when they're told to hurry.
C1
- What appeared to be a simple tendency to dawdle masked a deeper resistance to authority.
- She understood that to dawdle was, in some small way, to reclaim control over her own time.
C2
- In those final moments before the decision, he allowed himself to dawdle — not from indecision, but from a quiet refusal to accept what came next.
- The art of knowing when to dawdle and when to act with purpose separates the wise from the merely efficient.
Examples by Scenario
🏠 Everyday Life
- My kid will dawdle getting dressed no matter how many times I tell her we're late.
- I dawdle on my walk to work sometimes, just to avoid sitting at my desk.
💼 Workplace
- He tends to dawdle during meetings, which drives the whole team crazy.
- Nobody dawdle when the boss is watching, but the moment she leaves, everyone slows down.
📊 Business
- We can't afford to dawdle on this contract — the competition is already moving.
- The client started to dawdle on the final decision, which cost us two weeks.
🛒 Buying / Shopping
- I always dawdle in the grocery store because I can never remember what I actually need.
- She'll dawdle at the checkout, reading magazines while the line builds up behind her.
✈️ Travel
- We had to dawdle through the airport because our flight was delayed anyway.
- Don't dawdle at the hotel — the tour bus leaves in twenty minutes.
📚 Education
- Students dawdle on assignments until the night before they're due.
- The teacher noticed him dawdle over his test, clearly not prepared.
❤️ Relationships
- He would dawdle leaving after our fights, as if staying longer might fix things.
- We used to dawdle in bed on Sunday mornings, talking about nothing important.
📰 News / Politics
- The government continues to dawdle on climate policy while the crisis worsens.
- Critics argue that the administration has begun to dawdle on key reforms.
💻 Technology
- The app loads so slowly that users dawdle and eventually give up.
- I dawdle scrolling through social media when I should be working.
📝 Formal Writing
- The committee should not dawdle in its review of the proposed legislation.
- Institutions that dawdle in adopting new technologies risk falling behind their competitors.