dither

Elias has decided to stay put even as prices dither.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

And while Hamlet may dither in seeking revenge for his father’s murder, we don’t hope that the scheming Claudius gets away with it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026

Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson said: "Every single day, thousands of victims are denied the justice they deserve... the government cannot afford to dither and delay, they must crack down on unsolved crimes."

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025

Providing this road map of his intentions puts Smith on firm footing to challenge the judge if she continues to dither.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2024

To dither and dally when the window of opportunity opens means to end up with one’s nose pressed against the glass of fate, gazing with regret at what might have been.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

But the feature dithers in development, which becomes something of a running joke here; the shot of a stone-faced Mr. McElwee watching a ridiculous promo reel is a moment of perfectly understated comedy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

The narrator dithers over how much she wants a leadership position in this unofficial hierarchy of casual dismissiveness, earnestness avoidance and radical obsolescence.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2021

“Borders are closed, aircraft grounded and ships anchored as W.H.O. mutely dithers over whether or not to declare an emergency.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2020

Neves pings a stupendous long ball out to the right for Cancelo, who cuts back to Joao Mario in the area but he dithers slightly, and hoofs the shot over the bar.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 17, 2018

But it tends to defeat efficient compression, because the very thing that dithers to reduce moire patterns also tends to work against compression schemes.

From Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts by Library of Congress

Beirut dithered away all of 2025 while U.S. envoy Tom Barrack pleaded with it to disarm Hezbollah.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026

In 2022, 17 years after the Rolling Stones released their most recent album of original songs, Mick Jagger decided the band had dithered and procrastinated long enough.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2023

It was a much quieter affair after the break but Parris was at hand to capitalise as Spurs dithered and were unable to clear the ball from the six-yard box.

From BBC ● May 7, 2023

While Washington dithered, he appeared to place risky bets that incinerated his fortune, jeopardized billions of dollars in Silicon Valley capital and upended an entire ecosystem of cryptocurrency start-ups.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2022

I’d dithered over what to tell her until it was time for bed.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

After months of burying the accusations, and more than two years of dithering, the International Criminal Court at last fired its prosecutor, Karim Khan.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

Winchcomb says some of the "dithering" may be because of the potential knock-on effect of any legislation for users of mobility scooters.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

After some dithering, I settled on my home state of New York.

From Slate ● Jan. 13, 2026

It would rather binge-watch thousands of hours of trashy TV shows than deal with the dithering crew of space hippies to which it’s been assigned.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2025

There was a lot of dithering and stopping to groom or rub, but despite their stress everyone got a fair amount of food in.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer