do-nothing

Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb, but from the phrase do nothing, which English expresses as a verb phrase containing a complement.

do-nothing

1. (attributive) Doing nothing, not taking any action.

   It became clear that a chronic do-nothing approach to the problem's management would no longer suffice.

   • 2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Castlefield conundrum”, in Rail, page 31:

     Manchester needs more railway capacity. Just how that is provided until the new platforms are built for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, I will leave for the experts, but a do-nothing approach is not going to be helpful and quite justifiably will create more arguments that the North is being ignored.

do-nothing (plural do-nothings)

1. A lazy person.

   Synonyms: idler; see also Thesaurus:idler

   Antonyms: doer; see also Thesaurus:doer

• do-nothingism
• do-nothingness

• know-nothing

• “do-nothing”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.