footle

• vi. 做笨事；说呆话；浪费时间
• n. 呆话；傻事
• adj. 无价值的；不重要的

词源不详。可能来自foot, 脚。-le,表反复。即走来走去，闲混。

1. be about;

"The high school students like to loiter in the Central Square"

"Who is this man that is hanging around the department?"

2. act foolishly, as by talking nonsense

footle

footle: [19] Footling appears to have originated as a euphemistic equivalent to fucking. It probably comes from a dialectal footer ‘mess about, fuck around’, which may well have been acquired from French foutre ‘copulate with’, a descendant of Latin futuere ‘copulate with’ (whose origin is not known).

footle (v.)

"to trifle," 1892, from dialectal footer "to trifle," footy "mean, paltry" (1752), perhaps from French se foutre "to care nothing," from Old French futer "to copulate with," from Latin futuere "have sex," originally "to strike, thrust" (see confute). But OED derives the English dialect words from foughty (c. 1600), from Dutch vochtig or Danish fugtig "damp, musty;" related to fog (n.).