putterings 400 < 401 > 402 index
or useless things, collecting; shooling, on the dot
54 Wasting time by loafing on the job : soldiering/shooling/diddling
55 Wasting time by doing unimportant or useless things : puttering/... / doing busy-work
?
unknown source, but evidently in this (or adjacent?) volume; not
Louise Pound, “The American Dialect Society : A Historial Sketch,” Publication of the American Dialect Society 17:1 (April 1, 1952) : 3-28 : link, nor
Francis Wright Bradley, “The Press as an Ally in Collecting Folk Speech,”
Publication of the American Dialect Society 17:1 (1952) : 29–39 : link
(both paywalled)
initial landing : link
—
shooling
from Old English sċofl (“shovel”)...
To move with a shoveling motion, to cover as by shoveling
to shuffle or shamble
to loaf or idle about begging
ex wiktionary : link
Louise Pound (1872-1958)
wikipedia : link
Francis Wright Bradley (1884-1971)
wikipedia : link