do-nothing

A lazy person.

Adjective

  1. Doing nothing, not taking any action.
    • It became clear that a chronic do-nothing approach to the problem's management would no longer suffice.
    • Manchester needs more railway capacity. Just how that is provided until the new platforms are built for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, I will leave for the experts, but a do-nothing approach is not going to be...

Origin

Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb, but from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a verb phrase containing a complement.

Noun

  1. A lazy person.

    Synonyms: idler bum couch potato dawdler deadbeat dogfucker do-naught do-nothing dosser idleton faineant flaneur footler get-nothing goldbricker goof-off lallygag lollygagger laggard layabout lazy ass lazybones lazy louse lidderon

    Antonyms: doer agent dynamo gunner self-starter

Forms

do-nothings

Related

know-nothing

Derived

do-nothingism do-nothingness