Emily Dickinson Lexicon

I'DLE-NESS, n.

1. Abstinence from labor or employment; the state of a person who is unemployed in labor, or unoccopied in business; the state of doing nothing. Idleness is the parent of vice. Through the idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. Eccles. x.
2. Aversion to labor; reluctance to be employed, or to exertion either of body or mind; laziness; sloth; sluggishness. This is properly laziness; but idleness is often the effect of laziness, and sometimes this word may be used for it.
3. Unimportance; trivialness. Apes of idleness. Shak.
4. Inefficacy; uselessness. [Little used.]
5. Barrenness; worthlessness. [Little used.]
6. Emptiness; foolishness; infatuation; as, idleness of brain. [Little used.] Bacon.