otiose

From Latin ōtiōsus (“idle”), from ōtium (“ease”)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊ.ʃi.əʊs/ or /ˈəʊ.ti.əʊs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊ.ʃi.oʊs/ or /ˈoʊ.ti.oʊs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

otiose (comparative more otiose, superlative most otiose)

1. Having no effect.
   • 1929, Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica

     The most eminent jurists have not even yet decided on a satisfactory definition of piracy. […] One school holds that it is any felony committed on the High Seas. But that does little except render a separate term otiose. Moreover, it is not accepted by other schools of thought.

2. Done in a careless or perfunctory manner.
3. Reluctant to work or to exert oneself.
   • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest:

     Pemulis, w/ aid of 150mg. of time-release Tenuate Dospan, almost danced a little post-transaction jig on his way up the steps of the otiose Cambridge bus.

4. Having no reason for being (raison d’être); having no point, reason, or purpose.
   • 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters, ch 3

     On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before seven; and they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and consulting about brick and stone and native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and all sorts of otiose details about the chimney – just what I fled from in my father’s office twenty years ago;

   • 1969, G. R. Elton, The Practice of History:

     Neither the fact that the debates can become otiose, nor their zeal in so often simply echoing the points made in the past, need, however, lead one to suppose that the proper cure is silence.

• (resulting in no effect): futile, ineffective
• (reluctant to work): indolent, lazy, sluggish
• (having no reason or purpose): superfluous, irrelevant, pointless

• (resulting in no effect): productive, useful
• (reluctant to work): hardworking
• (having no reason or purpose): essential, necessary

• otiosely
• otioseness
• otiosity

ōtiōse

1. vocative masculine singular of ōtiōsus

• otiose in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• otiose in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• otiose in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette