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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Idle

Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Idle

Idle as digging in the bottom of the river for the stars we see reflected on the surface.
—Anonymous

Idle as railing at a deaf man.
—Anonymous

Idle as to aim at inscrutable things beyond the moon.
—Anonymous

Idle as a lazzarone.
—Joseph Ashby-Sterry

As idle as a dial when the sun
Sulks in the clouds.
—Alfred Austin

Idle as the stroke of a cane on the hide of rhinoceros.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Idle as air.
—Alice Cary

As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Idle, as the dreams of maids.
—Walter Harte

Idle as a summer noon.
—Omar Khayyám

Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
—Joyce Kilmer

Idle, and mean as a collier’s whelp.
—Rudyard Kipling