How to Use dawdle in a Sentence

dawdle

verb
  • Hurry up! There's no time to dawdle.
  • Come home immediately after school, and don't dawdle.
  • Pick a base and branch out or mix and match, but don’t dawdle.
    — David Swanson, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2021
  • Pick a base and branch out or mix and match, but don’t dawdle.
    — David Swanson, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2021
  • His fingers dawdled over my remedies, but his gaze was locked on my face.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2024
  • But, lucky for anyone who dawdled, many of the deals are still active.
    — Adam Campbell-Schmitt, Bon Appetit Magazine, 27 June 2026
  • The team couldn’t dawdle because the dolphins might not stay long.
    — Jill Langlois, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 Mar. 2022
  • No time to dawdle while finding your credit score!
    — Clio Chang, Curbed, 17 June 2026
  • Now is not the time to dawdle, as certain entries on the list might still sell out by week’s end.
    — Staff Report, Hartford Courant, 6 Feb. 2025
  • Fava snuffled and dawdled and took her own sweet time up the sidewalk.
    — Dan Kois, New Yorker, 17 Sep. 2025
  • If the last launch was any indication, it's bound to be gone in no time, so don't dawdle.
    — Kaleigh Fasanella, Allure, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Don’t dawdle, though, because places are expected to book up fast.
    — Susan Dunne, courant.com, 28 Mar. 2022
  • Then one player went the wrong way coming out of the huddle, while a teammate dawdled.
    — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Sep. 2023
  • We are rushed through the establishment of this world, only to dawdle as time goes by.
    — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 23 Dec. 2021
  • Look who’s back in town, ready to stop dawdling between pitches and get on with the business of playing at a crisp pace.
    — Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Mar. 2023
  • Haley, again, dawdling, eyes downcast, face leaden with despair, emerged.
    — Benjamin Hale, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • Make a beeline for your car after the performance to get a jump start on the crowd, or plan to dawdle a bit.
    — Jim Harrington, The Mercury News, 3 July 2019
  • My request to ownership is don’t dawdle.
    — Dp Opinion, Denver Post, 19 Oct. 2025
  • Slot’s focus on possession-dominance is not to say that his team dawdles on the ball.
    — Charlie Eccleshare, The Athletic, 26 Apr. 2024
  • Melania can dawdle in New York waiting for her son to finish the school year.
    — Caitlin Flanagan, The Cut, 14 May 2017
  • The referees blew the play dead and stood nearby, dawdling like a pair of plainclothes detectives at a crime scene.
    — Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2019
  • The raccoon survived and remained briefly in the backyard before slowly dawdling away.
    — Steve Hartman, CBS News, 5 July 2024
  • All part of the less-is-more ethos that has, over the past few seasons, elbowed maximalism out of the way like a dawdling tourist.
    — Véronique Hyland, ELLE, 16 Feb. 2023
  • But don’t dawdle, many of the Canada Goose coats part of this sale already show there are just one or two left.
    — Kelsey Glennon, Travel + Leisure, 22 Nov. 2024
  • Through the haze of scheming and months of posturing, dawdling and resistance, what has emerged is a snapshot of how the owners align.
    — Ken Belson, New York Times, 12 Jan. 2016
  • The absence of any overriding vision tells in the novel’s dawdling middle sections.
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 29 Sep. 2017
  • On an early evening walk, my dogs dawdle over an interesting scent, noses to the ground, making snuffling noises.
    — Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 8 Nov. 2016
  • Is there some reason to postpone or dawdle on aiming for better for Milwaukee kids?
    — Alan J. Borsuk, jsonline.com, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Faster pit stops could also help unlock sales for electric two-wheelers, which have been slow to catch on due to dawdling charge times and limited riding range.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 30 Mar. 2023
  • But in the capital, Friday seemed to dawdle a bit in demonstrating the season’s sparkling essence.
    — Martin Weil, Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dawdle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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