boondoggle
To waste time on a pointless activityTo waste time on a pointless activity.
» The project is over budget and unnecessary. It is a complete boondoggle.
rul · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
1 sensesTo waste time on a pointless activity.
- do useless, wasteful, or trivial work
Examples
1 sentencesThe project is over budget and unnecessary. It is a complete boondoggle.
Origin
Coined by American scout leader Robert H. Link in 1929; alternatively “boon doggle”. CompaCoined by American scout leader Robert H. Link in 1929; alternatively “boon doggle”. Compare woggle of similar sense, which is attested in the same period. In the sense of a “wasteful government program”, popularized in 1935 by The New York Times, in reference to New Deal programs which were claimed to feature people making such braids.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
boondoggles, boondoggling, boondoggled, boondoggled| Base form | boondoggle · to boondoggle |
|---|---|
| 3rd person singular | boondoggles |
| Present participle | boondoggling |
| Past simple | boondoggled |
| Past participle | boondoggled |
regular · Lesson
Lessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.