do-nothingn.adj.

1579 L. Tomson tr. J. Calvin Serm. Epist. S. Paule to Timothie & Titus 259/1 It is not for a do nothing that this office is ordeined.

1607 E. Grimeston tr. J. de Serres in tr. Gen. Inuentorie Hist. France sig. A.vii Lewis the do nothing, or idle, Sonne or Brother to Carloman takes vpon him to be King.

1630 P. Massinger Renegado iv. i. sig. H4 Such a goodman doe nothing.

1760 tr. J. F. Bernard Praise of Hell II. ii. xiv. 99 All those idle do-nothings, who take upon them the titles of Speculists and Politicians.

1855 M. Faraday Let. 6 Apr. in H. Bence Jones Life (1870) II. 361 I cannot imagine you a do-nothing.

1887 Spectator 15 Oct. 1378 A class of do-nothings who at some previous time had owned the land.

1968 K. H. Cooper Aerobics 38 This category catches all the do-nothings, the desk jockeys, the TV watchers, the over-eaters, the over-smokers.

2008 V. Jewiss tr. R. Saviano Gomorrah (new ed.) i. 171 But if you're a failure, a fool, a do-nothing, then you can only do good.

1797 ‘Mr. Addison’ Interesting Anecd. XII. 258 How after such an easy, do-nothing situation, the one of these lads could stoop to cobble a shoe.., the God of changes and revolutions alone can tell.

1832 W. Irving Alhambra II. 84 The invalids, old women, and other curious do-nothing folk.

1839 C. M. Sedgwick Means & Ends iv. 35 Emma, though she might possibly have forgotten here and there one of the do-nothing kings..yet could tell you what king did most to crush the liberties of the people.

1876 ‘G. Eliot’ Daniel Deronda IV. vii. liv. 99 He was..very fond of yachting: its dreamy do-nothing absolutism.

1904 C. Locke Five Minute Talks Second Ser. 205 There was once in France, many centuries ago, a race of kings called the ‘Do Nothing Kings’. They were thoroughly lifeless.

1967 Maclean's Aug. 27/3 And if this means running up against slum landlords, do-nothing local councils or a hostile white community—well, that's the name of the game.

2000 Salina (Kansas) Jrnl. 4 Nov. d1/1 To blunt charges from Democrats about a do-nothing Congress, the House doggedly stayed in session this week despite a budget stalemate.

1839 T. Carlyle Chartism vii. 64 Self-cancelling Donothingism.

1891 Sat. Rev. 5 Sept. 267/2 Dangerous apathy and donothingism.

1964 Jrnl. Higher Educ. 35 340 Realism in this case comes to be closely allied to apathy—a non-thinking do-nothingism.

2005 Indiana (Pa.) Gaz. 11 Apr. 6/1 Those of us who accuse the administration of inventing a Social Security crisis are often accused, in return, of do-nothingism.

1814 J. Austen Mansfield Park III. viii. 172 A situation of similar affluence and do-nothing-ness . View more context for this quotation

1879 Mrs. Houstoun Wild West 77 Gaunt, enfeebled-looking labourers abused for their idleness, their do-nothingness.

1917 Times 16 Jan. 11/6 How would you support the terrible do-nothingness of such a state?

2001 Sci. Fiction Chron. June 17/1 Price's ideology promulgated do-nothingness..as a remedy for the stress of modern society.