idle

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idle

[′īd·əl]

(mechanical engineering)

To run without a load.

idle

Not processing any data. Some CPUs have an idle state that halts all processing until an interrupt is received. However, some circuits are always operating such as the refreshing of static and dynamic RAM memories, which would otherwise lose their content. See idle character.

References in periodicals archive ?

It is most saddening that the council stands idly by, crippled, unable to stop the blood bath which has become the bitter daily lot of the defenseless Lebanese people," the Qatari foreign minister told the council.

Gillerman: Crisis is About Terror, Not Territory

Belgian colonialism forged the Hutu rage against the Tutsi by creating a caste society in which the Hutus were long oppressed, and American and European governments sat idly by as the genocide rolled on month after month in Rwanda.

Our hearts of darkness: once the setting for Hollywood safari adventures, the war-torn reality of Africa is finally getting a screening

Roberts' religion might affect his judging be off the table but now stands idly by while the administration sells Miers by highlighting where she goes to church.

How I became an 'irritant to the status quo'

Furthermore, gendered analyses of Victorian violence have largely focused on constructions of dutiful femininity that excused men's "disciplinary" violence and an all-male judiciary that stood idly by or even actively supported male household dominance.

Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness, and Criminal Justice in Victorian England

Hirsh seems to ignore the fact that American power has also been a destabilizing force, whether arming both sides of the Iran/Iraq conflict, sitting idly by while Saddam gassed the Kurds or planned his Kuwaiti invasion, or showing up on the wrong side of any number of Central and South American conflicts.

Power failure?

Idly surfing the Web is one remove away from keeping a journal or trying your hand at creative writing.

Getting kids off the couch: a practical Q&A

Wonder idly what it would be like to holiday in the Galapagos Islands.

Why all this fuss? What price Fallon for title now?

While other investors were selling or sitting idly on the sidelines, we were diligent in adding new stocks to our portfolio.

Finding a winning strategy: A.B.A.S.I. members use price limits to minimize losses and maximize stock gains

The most recent letter suggests that we are sitting idly by while our government is destroying individual rights much like Germans sat idly by in the 1920s.

Ashcroft, a liberal?

I would suggest it is unpatriotic to sit idly and allow our government, beneficent or not, to act without providing answers to legitimate questions posed by its citizens.

Feed back

But you also don't have to stand by idly while she decides if she feels like gracing you with her presence.

Stormy weather. (Friends)

Fashion no longer begs justification to graze idly in the pages of an art magazine; in fact, the "blurred boundary of art and commerce" was already fading to black when the editorial was being written twenty years ago.