boondoggle
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L317240 on Wikidata ↗verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L330994 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈbuːndɒɡl̩/ / /ˈbundɑɡəl/
noun
Etymology: Coined 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.
- A braided ring to hold a neckerchief.
- A waste of time or money; a pointless activity.
“Opponents consider this another billion-dollar government boondoggle.”
“Senator John Stennis […] has been active and effective for so long as a member of the Armed Services Committee that he knows as well as any man can where the bodies are buried in the Pentagon and the boondoggles are buried in the defense budget.”
- A trip or journey, especially a recreational or otherwise desirable one.
“By its strictest definition, a boondoggle is a recreational trip out of town, but it has been blurred by threadbare jokes to mean any trip that is desirable, whether for work or not.”
“I could die on this boondoggle too, naturally, as the world has become something of a horror show of late. In any case, I trust that anybody following in my footsteps and reading these additional words will have the presence of mind to pursue the same basic strategy.”
- A trip or journey, especially a recreational or otherwise desirable one.
“A non-work excursion away from the station in US Antarctic English is a “boondoggle”, or a “jolly” for the Britons.”
verb
Etymology: Coined 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.
- To waste time on a pointless activity.
“These days the astronaut job title has been split into two categories. (Three, counting payload specialist, the category into which teachers, boondoggling senators, and junketing Saudi princes fall.)”