foot-dragging

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See also: footdragging

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From drag one's feet.

Noun

foot-dragging (usually uncountable, plural foot-draggings)

  1. The deliberate delaying of obligatory action.
    • 1918, Francis Lynde, Branded, page 114:
      I am glad to be able to say that common honesty, or some shadowy simulacrum of it, revived presently and sent me back to the hotel, though not without terrible foot-draggings, you may be sure.
    • 2005, Clive Archer, Norway Outside the European Union: Norway and European Integration from 1994 to 2004, page 191:
      The tactics of pace-setting, foot-dragging, least resistance or fence-sitting could be used either in the making of policy or, later, in its implementation.
    • 2008, Maryann Dickar, Corridor Cultures: Mapping Student Resistance at an Urban School, page 154:
      Once in the classroom, students also employed foot-dragging strategies to slow the transition from the hall state to the student state.
    • 2010 December 9, Ewen MacAskill, “WikiLeaks cables: China ‘fed up’ with Burma's footdragging on reforms”, in The Guardian:
      A Beijing diplomat complained China is “fed up with the footdragging” of Burma's strongman, General Than Shwe, and his inner circle, one of the cables, released by WikiLeaks, reported.
    • 2021 March 24, “Open Access: Waiting for the wires”, in RAIL, number 927, page 33:
      Given that (English) politicians are noted for foot-dragging on electrification schemes, will they use these new locomotives simply as an excuse to defer more electrification schemes?

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