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Loiter   Listen
verb
Loiter  v. i.  (past & past part. loitered; pres. part. loitering)  
1.
To be slow in moving; to delay; to linger; to be dilatory; to spend time idly; to saunter; to lag behind. "Sir John, you loiter here too long." "If we have loitered, let us quicken our pace."
2.
To wander as an idle vagrant. (Obs.)
Synonyms: To linger; delay; lag; saunter; tarry.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Loiter" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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

... wait? Of old, the rapid hours Refused to pause or loiter with me long; But now they idly fill their hands with flowers, And make no haste, but slowly stroll among The summer blooms, not heeding my one song, How can ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... 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, ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... day of Tom's warning look, Carl rarely joined her daughter. Jennie would loiter by the way, speaking to the girls, but he would hang back. He felt that Tom ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith

... am coming! I am coming! sings the robin on the wing; Soon the gates of spring will open; where you loiter I will sing; Turn your thoughts to merriest music, send it ringing down the vale, Where the yellow-bird is waiting on the old ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... just sent for your ladyship and for you, young ladies, to taste. That she bids you," (the matron) continued, turning towards P'ing Erh, "come over on duty, but your mind is so set upon pleasure that you loiter behind and don't go back. She advises you, however, not to have too many cups ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... in which the Blanchards lived: Emmy began to press forward as Alf seemed inclined to loiter. In the neighbourhood the church that had struck eight as they left the house began once again to ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... 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 e'er in new Utopias were ared,[136] To teach Man what ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... room, before we see the pictures, we know that they are good. For a pleasant soft colour, delicate and insinuating as an odour of flowers, pervades the room. So we are glad to loiter in this vague sensation of delicate colour, and we talk to our friends, avoiding the pictures, until gradually a pale-faced woman with arched eyebrows draws our eyes and fixes our thoughts. It is a portrait by Mr. Sargent, one of the best he has painted. By the side of a fine ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... you shall have the dearest of 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 ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... own living in an honorable manner, I will depend upon no one. My father has been so much taken up all his lifetime with the interests of the public, that his own fortune has suffered by it: so that his children will have to provide for themselves, which I shall never be able to do if I loiter away my precious time in Europe and shun going home until I am forced to it. With an ordinary share of common sense, which I hope I enjoy, at least in America I can live independent and free; and rather than live otherwise I would wish to die ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly{8} bars; I loiter ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... no object to these people, they were no doubt paid by the day. The sun shone upon them and it was pleasant simply to exist and to loiter in life, so why make haste? Finally we ascended as the lock filled, and then a second and a third joint cut off from our too long tail of barges had to be passed in also. After all, the captain and sometimes the whole crew deliberately adjourned to the lock-keeper's house for a "glass" ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

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

... was the midnight hour, The clock was echoing in the tower; But 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

... he was, she set such a pace up the steps and through the lower galleries that further intimate talk became impossible. Atalanta well knew what she was about when she ran her suitors to death, and Meilanion showed a deep insight into human nature when he arranged that she should loiter occasionally. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... help turning aside with Tim just for another glimpse of the smouldering ruins, looking so black and desolate in the daylight. But after that he did not loiter a minute, and spent the rest of the morning in diligent attention to his duties, until, a little before mid-day, he saw the farmer who employed him riding across the sheep-walk; and when he ran forward ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... it appeared. Buttle's experience had been that you might take time, if you did not charge for it. When time began to mean money, that was a different matter. If you did work by the job, you might drive in a few nails, loiter, and return without haste; if you worked by the hour, your absence would be inquired into. In the present case no one could loiter. That was realised early. The tall girl, with the deep straight look at you, made you realise that without spoken words. She expected energy something like her own. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... daughter was betrothed to the boy John Lackland with dowries disputable, whereat Henry junior rebels, and makes uncommon mischief. The procurator was keen and accurate in his work. He never mislaid the books, forgot, fumbled, or made a "loiter," morantia, as they called it, when the office halted or was unpunctual. The lay brethren did not have to cough at any trips in his reading, which was their quaint way of ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... very rich to Daniel Boone; he liked to loiter along the streets and look in at the wide gardens and the comfortable white porches, and he liked to stop and watch a city chaise drive by, with a man in a claret or plum-colored suit and a woman in a bright taffeta gown. They were almost a different race from the buckskin-clad ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland

... to loiter no more, philosophically betook himself to his heels, or rather hoofs, and trotted briskly supper-wards, up hill and down, until suddenly, above the rattle and grind of the wheels, I was aware of a man's voice, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... bunch of flowers, I return home with them. . . . . Then I ascend to my study, and generally read, or perchance scribble in this journal, and otherwise suffer Time to loiter onward at his own pleasure, till the dinner-hour. In pleasant days, the chief event of the afternoon, and the happiest one of the day, is our walk. . . . . So comes the night; and I look back upon a day spent in what the world would call idleness, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to the boys, one that Pryor and Goliath gave credence to, but which the others refused to believe. It was a tale of two trench-mortars, squat little things that loiter about the firing line and look for all the world like toads ready to hop off. I came on two of these the night before, crept on them unawares and found (p. 187) them speaking to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses." ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... by the intervention of my father, who would arrange with the Government and with Providence that I should be the first writer of my day. But at other times, while my parents were growing impatient at seeing me loiter behind instead of following them, my actual life, instead of seeming an artificial creation by my father, and one which he could modify as he chose, appeared, on the contrary, to be comprised in a larger reality which had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... large Corps dump about a quarter of a mile from the factory got on fire, and went on flaring and exploding all day. A good many pieces of shells and fragments from this dump came rattling against the walls of the sugar factory, making it no place to loiter about. I learnt that the 42nd F.A., to which my brother George was attached, was due to take over from our F.A. in Ronville; but I did not ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses; ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... 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 glad to be where it is ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... evening, and the cool and refreshing breeze from the sea inclined each passenger, whose business was not of a very urgent description, to loiter on his way, and cast a glance at the romantic gateway, and the various interesting objects of nature and art, which the city of Constantinople presented, as well to the inhabitants as to strangers. [Footnote: The impression which the imperial city was calculated to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... outlets of the gates, be of good heart, nor be over-dismayed at the rabble of the aliens; God will give a happy issue. Moreover, I have also dispatched scouts and observers of the army, who will not, I feel assured, loiter on their way; and when I have had intelligence from these, I shall, in no point, be ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... a cursed interruption!" cried Jack, impatiently. "If you loiter in this way, old ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... case we'll have to watch and loiter around till they are both out of reach. It may ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... lawn, in which he takes great pride, slopes gently down to the river, and ends with a stone parapet, over which it is exceedingly pleasant to lean, and watch idly the flowing of the water, which seems to loiter almost reluctantly before passing on to Westminster, and the wharves and docks of the city. On the opposite bank grows a cluster of cedars, with rich, dark-green branches, showing nearly black against the pale blue of the sky. In our ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... that robbery had not been the object. I did not mention the adventure to any one. I pitied Jim, and if he had escaped, I had no mind to be the means of his recapture. Whatever harm he had intended, he had not done it, and there was no probability that he would loiter about in that vicinity. I had reason to be glad of my silence; for the next day an agent from the slave-trader arrived, saying that Jim had escaped, and that they thought he might be lurking near where his wife was. When Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... quoth the father, "come forth to the garden, and merrily work in the glow of the sun; to loiter about is a crime beyond pardon, when there's so much hoeing that has to be done! It pains me to mark that you'd fain be retreating away from the hoes and such weapons as these; you're diligent, though, when the time comes for eating the turnips and ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... lazy hangers-on about St. James's. Those fellows were Anybodies, Parasites of Back-Stairs favourites, and spies and lacqueys, transformed serving-men, butlers past drawing corks, grooms and porters, even. They had nothing to do but loiter about the antechambers and staircases of St. James's, to walk by the side of his Majesty's coach when he went to the Houses of Parliament, or to fight with the Marshalmen at Royal Funerals for petty spoils of wax-candles or shreds of black hangings. The knaves actually wore wigs, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... alleys, placards in French 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 ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... would sleep more deeply, shape your stubborn tongue to a specific point," commanded the other, touching a meaning sword. "Who are you who loiter here, and for what purpose do you lurk? Speak fully, and be assured that your word will be put ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... rest. As yet her father saw no reason for hurrying. To loiter, to rest upon the hillside and chat in the sunshine was what he liked; and here was his daughter fleet-footed and strong, almost hurriedly leading him far into the valley between the hills as though bent on ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... clear water that in cool dewy channels gush down the green Casentine hills. Sinon, the false Greek of Troy, mocks at him. He smites him in the face, and they wrangle. We are fascinated by their shame, and loiter, till Virgil chides us and leads us away to that city turreted by giants where great Nimrod blows his horn. Terrible things are in store for us, and we go to meet them in Dante's raiment and with Dante's heart. We traverse the marshes of the Styx, and Argenti swims to the boat ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... He saw that what 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 ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... life—what of it? 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 are not two ways, do you understand, ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... of a huge hangar mechanicians are at work on the motor of an airplane. Outside, on the borders of an aviation field, others loiter awaiting their aerial charge's return from the sky. Near the hangar stands a hut-shaped tent. In front of it several short-winged biplanes are lined up; inside it three or four young men are lolling ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... 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 ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... are hitching, they are halting, and they lurk and hide and dodge, They sneak for skulking-eddies, they bunt the bank and lodge; And we almost can imagine that they hear the yell of saws And the grunting of the grinders of the paper-mills, because They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at the falls, And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad dead-water crawls; But we wallow in and welt 'em, with the water to our waist, For the driving pitch is dropping and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... riddle was solved. A few more solutions and there would be a mad Styrian in Burgundy. My reflections were after this fashion: Princesses, after all, do wander by the moat side and loiter by the bridge. Princesses do go on long journeys with no lady-in-waiting to do their bidding and no servants ready at their call. Yolanda was Mary of Burgundy, thought I, and Max had been throwing away God-given opportunities. Had she not seen Max from the ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... 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 one an opportunity to see them in their ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... their wives. The hunter and the warrior are numbered by the matron as a part of her treasure; they are reserved for perils and trying occasions; and in the recess of public councils, in the intervals of hunting or war, are maintained by the cares of the women, and loiter about in mere ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... its character so well that, in this respect, I had nothing to learn. It now remained to get the number which professed to be seasoned with my particular case; and it may be supposed that I did not loiter over my breakfast after this discovery. Something which I saw or suspected amongst the significant hints of a paragraph or advertisement, made me fear that there might possibly be insinuations or downright ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... finished the night had fully come, and he would have set out at once to loiter around the constable's house but for the fact that as yet he did not ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... out warning us that it is known there are a lot of spies in the Island, and that we must not loiter near a fort lest we be shot. It is rumoured that soldiers are to be billeted on us (enthusiastic cheers from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various

... nob, and one for his heels." The old lady of "The Choughs" liked nothing so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed to lose, and laughingly wrangling with her over the last points in the game which ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... retorted the Captain good-humouredly, as he hobbled along with some difficulty by the aid of his stick down the uneven path, "you would loiter too if you had my poor legs to walk with! Never mind, though, here we are at last; and, I tell you what, ma'am, that table- cloth there and the good things you've got on it is the prettiest sight I've ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... friendship guided, gen'rous Mornay came Where loiter'd Henry, mindless of his fame; 275 The artful god prolong'd the am'rous trance, And in her hero rul'd the fate of France. No sameness there the varied bliss destroy'd, No languor chill'd, no forward ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... would make our hearts beat high again, And we'd see the snow-top mountain like we used to see 'em then; The magpies would go flutterin' like strange sperrits to 'nd fro, And we'd hear the pines a-singing' in the ragged gulch below; And the mountain brook would loiter like upon its windin' way, Ez if it waited for a child to ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... alike, Tom, You pass with plodding feet; You heed not one nor t'other, But onwards go your beat; While genius stops to loiter With all that ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... engrossing half the hemisphere. To this point, it seemed, their path was directed. The guide now trimmed his torch, the smoke from which had for some time been rather an accompaniment than an assistance to their toil, as it caused them to loiter at an inconvenient distance, thereby enhancing the difficulties they had to encounter. Slow and toilsome was their progress, yet a patient continuance in any path will sooner or later lead to the end. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... performed by Irishmen and negroes. But downright steady hard work is just what the Western Irishman is not accustomed to at home. He will work nobly for a spurt, but when the spurt is over he loves to loiter and ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... their mad race for the unattainable. Many have had a glimpse of the Gilded One, and are rushing on to pass the mysterious gate behind which the desires of life await them. Some faint by the roadside or stop in their race for the goal to contend or to loiter by the way, but those nearest the El Dorado increase their speed. Beside the gateway that has only just allowed the Gilded One to pass thru are two mortals who have come close to the land of their desires, but only ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... and my heart was o'erflowing, I loiter'd beside the small lake on the heath; The red sun, though down, left his drapery glowing, And no sound was stirring, I heard not a breath: I sat on the turf, but I meant not to sleep, And gazed o'er that lake which for ever is new, Where ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield

... difficulty which it had become absolutely necessary to bring forward. Lazy, vagabond Indians had for some time been increasingly in the habit of crowding the little village of the colonists and eating out their substance. They would come with their wives and their children, and loiter around day after day, without any delicacy whatever, clamoring for food, and devouring every thing which was set before them like famished wolves. The Pilgrims, anxious to maintain friendly relations with Massasoit, were reluctant to drive away his subjects by violence, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... custom of the students to loiter in the parlor after dinner, gathering about in groups. Someone talked; others drew about the piano; while others arm in arm walked up and down in confidential talk. One evening as Hester joined one of these groups, the talk ceased. ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football game—something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... ladies! Look alert! Straight bestir you! Loiter not,—here is the land!— To dame Isolda says the servant of Tristan, our hero true:— Behold our flag is flying! it waveth landwards aloft: in Mark's ancestral castle may our approach be seen. So, dame Isolda, he prays to hasten, for land straight to prepare her, ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner

... blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her. 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 particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

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

... we 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 that he was lurking in the shadows somewhere. As we stood there we saw the ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... o'clock when the congenial diners finished an elaborate dessert and strolled gaily out of the Inn. The beauty of the night induced the will to loiter. Some one proposed a walk into Chesterford and a visit to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... not," Mrs. McDougall said, hastily; "but they should ha' been home long ago. They would not loiter on the way ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... loiter about the palace, calling upon the brother's wife's uncle if possible, and discover all that he could without arousing suspicion. And Billy determined to do a little loitering himself and quicken the one-eyed man's investigations and keep watch of Kerissen's comings and goings, and ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... To see the long expected sail! Then, as it blankly wore away, Courted the fleeting eye to stay! As they regardless mov'd along, Wooed the slow moments in a song. The time approaches! but the Hours With languid steps advance, And loiter o'er the summer flowers, Or in the sun-beams dance! Oh! haste along! for, lingering, ye Detain ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... entitled to command. I am, as yet, but standing without the gate of the Garden of Romance. True it is, that as I gaze through the ivory bars of its Golden Portal, I would fain believe that, following my roving fancy, I might arrive at some green retreats hitherto unexplored, and loiter among some leafy bowers where none have lingered before me. But these expectations may be as vain as those dreams of Youth over which all have mourned. The Disappointment of Manhood succeeds to the delusion of Youth: let us hope that the heritage ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... with a 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, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... the Grand and Petit Trianon. The great Trianon is a palace with one story, and having two wings. The little Trianon has two stories. Here royalty has loved to loiter when tired of the splendors of the stupendous palace close by. Here are some exquisite paintings, brought by Louis Philippe ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... four miles long, and the officer was possessed of a desire to loiter by the way, recounting anecdotes of his school days. He would walk along for a few steps and then pause to tell Bulle some long and rambling yarn about his uncle. Bulle would take him by the arm and get him in motion ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... at the pleugh, His acre's till'd, he's right eneugh; A country girl at her wheel, Her dizzen's dune, she's unco weel; But gentlemen, an' ladies warst, Wi' ev'n-down want o' wark are curst. They loiter, lounging, lank an' lazy; Tho' deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy; Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless; Their ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... not occupy them very long, and they entered the Cathedral before the anthem was over; but Marian felt that it was not fitting to loiter about the nave while worship was going on within the choir; and the uncomfortable feeling occupied her so much, that she could hardly look at the fair clustered columns and graceful arches, and seemed scarcely to know or care for the gallant William Longsword, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and well-grown sisters of the North, the handsome strapping coloured wenches copied their island betters in materials which if flimsy were no less bright; so it is no matter for wonder that the young bloods came from London to admire and loiter and flirt in an enchanted clime that seemed made for naught else, that the sons of the planters sent to London for their own finery, and the young coloured bucks strutted about like peacocks on such days as they were not grinding ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... students at the Synthesis were so clear as to their direction, but they all had the same faith in the Synthesis and its methods. They hardly ever talked to her of anything else, and first and last they talked a good deal to her. It was against the rules to loiter and talk in the corridors, as much against the rules as smoking; but every now and then you came upon a young man with a cigarette, and he was nearly always talking with a group of girls. At lunch-time the steps and window-seats were full, and the passages were ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... 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 sure to ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... (So may Godhead deign Help me!) nowise in humbler way Art fair, nor Venus shall disdain Thy charms, but look! how wanes the day: 195 Forward, nor loiter more! ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... must do as your father bids you, like a good boy. Run along now to Argos and Boeotia; don't loiter, or you will get a whipping. Lovers are ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... the day of blessedness and rest to the people of God, it cannot come until the Lamb's wife hath made herself ready; until all the saints that belong to glory are ready. And before I go further, what might I yet say to fasten this reason upon the truly gracious soul? What! wilt thou yet loiter in the work of thy day? wilt thou still be unwilling to hasten righteousness? dost thou not know that thou by so doing deferrest the coming of thy dearest Lord? Besides, that is the day of his glory, the day when he ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... like a general reform be possible in these times of dispersion and of scattering, keep henceforth our sense of humour in a place better guarded, as something worth a measure of seclusion. It should not loiter in wait for the alms of a joke in adventurous places. For the sense of humour has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter. It has negative tasks of valid virtue; for example, the standing and waiting ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... have 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 ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... 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, but generally ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... ease, the keeper appeared, key in hand. He 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 reach Fusina quickly. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... the lake that lay in the winter twilight like a shield of silver. He loved to see the sun flash on the windows of the houses so distant that they could not themselves be seen, but only sparkled like stars. He loved to loiter on the edge of the steep hanging woods in summer, to listen to the humming of the flies deep in the brake, and to catch a sight of lonely flowers; he loved the scent of the wind blowing softly out of the copse, and he wondered what the trees said to each ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... irritable old gentleman who was taking an invalid walk quite jumped with annoyance when the song suddenly trumpeted forth. Boys had no right to yell in that manner. He hurried his step to get away from the sound. Two or three other people glanced over their shoulders, but had not time to loiter. A few others listened with pleasure as they drew ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise. "It pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk so ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... was not fully appreciated by Walter Hine. Nor did he understand the danger. There were gullies in which new snow lay in a thin crust over hard ice. He noticed that in those gullies the steps were cut deep into the ice below, that Garratt Skinner bade him not loiter, and that Pierre Delouvain in front made himself fast and drew in the rope with a particular care when it came to his turn to move. But he did not know that all that surface snow might peel off in a moment, and swish down the cliffs, sweeping ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... the Lot, taking the work easily, stopping 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

... way: we do not belong to their manor. We desire to beguile, by a sort of serpentine irregularity, the occasional tedium of rapid movement. We move to our journey's end by sundry old-fashioned circuitous routes. Grudge not, while you are whirled along a New Road, to loiter mentally upon certain Old Roads, and to consider as you linger along them the ways and means of transit which contented our ancestors. Although their coaches were slow, and their pack-saddles hard as those of the Yanguesan carriers of La Mancha, yet they ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... you had better not loiter; Gutter Vawr is a long way off over the mountain. It will be dark, I am afraid, long before you get to Gutter Vawr. Good evening, David! I am glad to have seen you, for I have long wished to see a man from the north country. Good evening! you will find plenty of good ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... remember all Thy grace, I cannot loiter in my place: And when I think of all my sin, What wages can I ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous

... fixedly and intently that the earth seemed gone, left far behind. Every hour and moment was a wonderful and beautiful thing. She felt on speaking terms with the rabbits. Something was happening in the leaves which waved and rustled as she passed. Just to walk, sit, lie around out of doors, to loiter, gaze, watch with a heart fresh as a young dryad, following birds, playing hide-and-seek with the brook-these were ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... 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

... 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, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... naturally promised every thing, took herself off, and was back again as quickly as possible. She did not loiter for a moment upon the road, did not even notice the signals which her Albert made as he came towards her from the distance. She could think ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... shingle are gone, and the stream is condemned to "loiter round its cresses," and to do nothing else. The water must not be more than six inches deep, and it must not flow too fast. To secure these conditions little dams, some made of earth and some of boards, are built from side to side of the brook. The water ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... and strange 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 feel ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... himself in awe of her, because of her schooling, her townish manners, her ladylike mode of dress. And soon, he came to take a sturdy, secret pride in her friendly familiarity towards him. Several times a week he would meet her in the lane, and they would loiter a moment together; she would admire his dogs, though he assured her earnestly that they were but sorry curs; and once, laughing at his staidness, she nick-named ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... to-morrow. That is a page I am very sorry to close. I had a confidence that I should have hunted down that fellow, and the sight of Portland and the accounts from Massissauga alike make one long to have one's hands on his throat; but that hope is ended now, and to loiter about Paris in search of him, when it it a plain duty to come away, would be one of the presumptuous acts that come to no good. Let them discuss what they will, there's nothing so hard to believe in as Divine Justice! And yet that uncomplaining face accepts it! ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shame, old Stawarth Bolton," said the English warden; "and thou, young man, get you gone to your own friends, and loiter not here." ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... forth early this morning, as we had a long day before us, and as Walter warned us, little time to loiter by the way, great as the temptation might be to ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... which they were engaged must of necessity be pushed hard and fast. Even if the settlers do not instantly rally, the American cavalry are quite sure to follow them, and the Indians have no time to loiter. The rest of the band, if a score of miles away, were likely to have their hands full without riding thus far out ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis

... to the Greeks: "Friends, Grecian heroes, ministers of Mars! Loiter not now behind, to throw yourselves Upon the prey, and bear it to the ships; Let all your aim be now to kill; anon Ye may at leisure ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... This dream it would not pass away— It seems to live upon my eye! And thence I vowed this self-same day 560 With music strong and saintly song To wander through the forest bare, Lest aught unholy loiter there.' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... thou wilt," returned Kit, "if thou dost loiter over thy business, and hast not those bars ready ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... which deluded men and women seek without value given to the world in return, has just disappeared through the gateway, the gates closing after him. On either side processions of seekers who have glimpsed the Gilded One, strain toward the gateway. Some loiter in love or play, some drop from fatigue, some fight their way along; and the first two, finding that the pursuit is fruitless after all, have dropped to their knees in anguish. The two standing figures beside the gates are said by the sculptor to have no significance beyond ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... "11. No Freshman shall loiter by the [way] when he is sent of an errand, but shall make hast and give a direct answer when he is asked who he is going [for]. No Freshman shall use lying or equivocation to escape going of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... pains, for known vanities, while God and glory are cast aside; that He 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 so near; and see what most men in the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... her pretty piece of work! 'Why should you? If you speak my Christian name, no: you forfeit any pretext. And pray, don't loiter. We are going at the pace of the firm of Potter and Dawdle, and you know they never got their shutters down till it was time ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Why should I loiter feverishly in Broadway, stabbing the hissing hot air with the splendid gold-headed cane that was presented to me by the citizens of Waukegan, Illinois, as a slight testimonial of their esteem? Why broil in my rooms? You said to me, Mrs. Gloverson, when I took possession of these rooms, that ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... drawing-room. The mission, she felt, would make her rather prominent in front of Edwin Clayhanger, the stranger, and she had an objection to being prominent in front of him; she had, indeed, taken every possible precaution against such a danger. "How silly I am to loiter here!" she thought. "I might ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... walking by my side, To cut things short, "You've no commands?" I cried. "Nay, you should know me: I'm a man of lore." "Sir, I'm your humble servant all the more." All in a fret to make him let me go, I now walk fast, now loiter and walk slow, Now whisper to my servant, while the sweat Ran down so fast, my very feet were wet. "O had I but a temper worth the name, Like yours, Bolanus!" inly I exclaim, While he keeps running on at a hand-trot, About ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... 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 ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... tired; and, closing his eyes, he fell half asleep in his chair. Rachel watched the people for some time longer; she was fascinated by the certainty and the grace of their movements, and by the inevitable way in which they seemed to follow each other, and loiter and pass on and disappear. But after a time her thoughts wandered, and she began to think of the dance, which had been held in this room, only then the room itself looked quite different. Glancing round, she ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... existence, would only indicate the position of the sun, and therefore could give no evidence in the matter. Beside, a sundial is not a portable instrument, and Joshua and his men had something more pressing to do than to loiter round it. Clepsydrae or clocks are of later date, and no more than a sundial are they portable. Many comments, one might almost say most comments on the narrative, read as if the writers supposed that Joshua and his men carried stop-watches, and that their chief interest in the whole campaign was ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... 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 little faster, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... off as heaven! The creation is frightfully big! Well, I must not loiter. I came out to say a prayer, then to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... which the Howadji Curtis heard wailing at their work of drawing water from the Nile. A little farther on I come to the boarding-house built at the railroad side for the French Canadians who have by this time succeeded the Hebrews in the toil of the brick-yards, and who, as they loiter in windy-voiced, good-humored groups about the doors of their lodgings, insist upon bringing before me the town of St. Michel at the mouth of the great Mont Cenis tunnel, where so many peasant folk like them are always amiably quarreling before the cabarets when the diligence comes and ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... instant the salmon takes the fly, for the rower to pull towards the shore with as much celerity and judgment as possible, neither to drive the boat too swiftly through the water, or loiter too slowly, both extremes endangering the chance of capturing your salmon. That part of the stream where P—— fished, was about forty yards below a rapid, and, indeed, ran with the current of a sluice; and the reader may imagine, that, a very little impetus given to the pram against ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... while Chesterfield went unread, and other things and conditions, not of nature and her seclusions, but vibrant with human energies and strifes, were making, unheeded of him, his world and his fate. A little boy's life does right to loiter. But if we loiter with him here, we are likely to find our eyes held ever by the one picture: John's gifted mother, in family group, book in her lap—husband's hand on her right shoulder—John leaning against her left side. Let us try leaving him for a ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

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

... aeroplane to its fullest speed, nor did they remain in the air longer than a couple of hours at a time. It had been decided to strike the eastern slope of the range just before dawn, so the Nelson was allowed to loiter on the way. Jack afterwards declared that ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... across the lawn; We idle by a bush in bloom; The household pets come following on; Or if the day is one of gloom, We loiter in a pleasant room, Or from a casement lean and chatter. Then comes the mail, like sudden hail, ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... closer to him than the others had done. The dreamy, wistful, meditative beauty of it all at once oppressed and inspired him. He saw Celia's shoulders sway under the impulse of the RUBATO license—the privilege to invest each measure with the stress of the whole, to loiter, to weep, to run and laugh at will—and the music she made spoke to him as with a human voice. There was the wooing sense of roses and moonlight, of perfumes, white skins, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... rudely, saying, "Get you hence," but still he stood: Then they gave him bread and water, "Loiter not, you ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... was but adding to it. At all events, he was correct in his conclusion that such a lodge could not be carried away, as could those for which Long Bear had sent his braves and squaws through the pass. It was perfectly certain that these would not loiter anywhere, but would go straight on their errand and return, and then the village would once more be under as good a shelter as it knew anything about or ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... of me, thou must go without a pot-herb! Wist thou what conflict thou must soon contend in To proffer speech and full defence for Sparta? Forward, my soul! the barriers are before thee. What, dost loiter? hast not imbibed Euripides? And yet I blame thee not. Courage, sad heart! And forward, though it be to lay thy head Upon the block. Rouse thee, and speak thy mind. Forward there! forward again! ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... dream? I know it does to me. The spectacle we have just witnessed was a part of the ages that believed in the godhead of Christ and the divine right of Kings; but it seems to me strange that such barbarities should be permitted to loiter.' ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... 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 ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... smiles of delight, and glad, eager voices, declaring that they had unbolted a door at the bottom of the staircase, and found themselves in the most beautiful part of the gardens. "Come!" said the young and sprightly girl, "do not loiter here; leave these rare and beautiful things until it rains again, and come forth at once with me into the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on his way to receive the verdict? ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... afterward to visit the 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, in a hurry. Or, as Mrs. Home-Davis said, "some one ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... to meet her far too early in the day, and when he had covered the couple of miles that lay between the inn on the hill and the railway-station at the foot, he was obliged to loiter about the sleepy little town for over an hour. But gradually the time ticked away; the hands of his watch pointed to a quarter to two, and presently he found himself on the shadeless, sandy station which lay at the end of a long, sandy street, edged with ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... me an account of the trekschuit. To appreciate the poetry of this national boat it is necessary to take long journeys in company with some Dutch people. Then they all live just as if they were at home; the women work, the men smoke on the roof; they dine all together, and after dinner they loiter about on the deck to see the sun set; the conversation grows very intimate, and the company becomes a family. Night comes on. The trekschuit passes like a shadow through villages steeped in silence, glides along the canals bathed in the silver ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... Houdancourt was received into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at that time Grande Maitresse, exercised a vigilant and kindly rule over the maids of honour; nevertheless, she could not prevent their being liable to the attentions of Louis: she forbade him however to loiter, or indeed even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young damsels under her charge; and when attracted by the beauty of Annie Lucie de la Mothe, Louis was obliged to speak to her through a hole behind a clock which ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall in Pilate's service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck Him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, "Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter?" and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, "I am going, and you shall wait till I return." And according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting His return. At the time of our Lord's suffering he was thirty years old, and when he ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... experienced in the warfare of the borders. There were besides twelve hundred foot-soldiers, brave and well-seasoned men of the same town. The count ordered them to hasten forward, whoever could make most speed, taking the road to Cabra, which was three leagues distant. That they might not loiter on the road he allowed none of them to break their fast until they arrived at that place. The provident count despatched couriers in advance, and the little army on reaching Cabra found tables spread with food and refreshments ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wings and showing their black bellies. They run slantwise, then come back; one would say that they felt the better for being in this great fresh-water harbor; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leaving the wrath and inclemency ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... to come and the last to go, nevertheless the hermit is little seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the ground in the ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... stand 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 vanquish ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... mirrored vistas, its rippling bends, 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 of using it as a guide in her work she was making a companion of it. She turned ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For me, I would always be willing to loiter along, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... but still I'm alone, I'm king of the dead—and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold; And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold: Come they from cottage or come they from hall, Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure or toilfully spin— I gather them in, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... direction, viz., from east to west. The same constellations remain above the horizon for weeks at a time, slowly moving westward, with the planets drifting yet more slowly, but at different rates, among them; the nearer planets, Venus and the earth, showing the most decided tendency to loiter behind the stars. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss



Words linked to "Loiter" :   mill around, mill about, loiterer, footle, mess about, linger, tarry, lurk, prowl, lurch, be, lallygag



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