What's the difference between linger and loiter?

Linger


Definition:

  • (a.) To delay; to loiter; to remain or wait long; to be slow or reluctant in parting or moving; to be slow in deciding; to be in suspense; to hesitate.
  • (v. t.) To protract; to draw out.
  • (v. t.) To spend or pass in a lingering manner; -- with out; as, to linger out one's days on a sick bed.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Play Video 6:52 Prime minister Theresa May calls general election for 8 June – full video statement If May wins a large Commons majority, the lingering hope that Britain will change its mind will be dashed.
  • (2) And yet, the spirit of '68 endures, perhaps mythical, perhaps as a lingering sense of the possibilities that mass activism once had.
  • (3) He pointed out that the eighth amendment of the US constitution “prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain through torture, barbarous methods, or methods resulting in a lingering death”.
  • (4) But in the minds of many Israelis, they continue to linger.
  • (5) When, in stoppage time, the 33-year-old striker swept a first-time shot home any lingering Villa optimism was extinguished.
  • (6) So our lingering affection for the cross is entirely symbolic.
  • (7) What Katrina left behind: New Orleans' uneven recovery and unending divisions Read more Ten years on, resentment still lingers about the failure of the federal levee system during hurricane Katrina, the botched response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), and the long and difficult process of accessing billions of dollars in grant money for rebuilding, which for some people is not finished.
  • (8) And that has more lingering, long-term consequences for the public finances.
  • (9) The exception actually lies with those who have had Ebola and recovered: studies suggest the virus can linger in semen for up to three months after recovery – so you may wish to think twice before having sex.
  • (10) Despite a lingering belief that they could have "gone in" with Labour if they had wanted to, the Lib Dems decided to abide responsibly by the logic of FPTP, and form a government that nobody had voted for at all.
  • (11) Olivier Blanchard, IMF director of research, said: “New factors supporting growth – lower oil prices, but also depreciation of euro and yen – are more than offset by persistent negative forces, including the lingering legacies of the crisis and lower potential growth in many countries”.
  • (12) But he will surely need help from elsewhere if Argentina are to linger deep into this competition.
  • (13) Our method of testing detects no lingering or permanent change after a single concussion.
  • (14) The study, aimed at examining lingering problems of veterans returning from both conflicts, also called into question a Defense Department policy which bans restricting access to private weapons "even if a service member is at risk from suicide".
  • (15) Between the 10-year projection of a half million FTE nursing shortage, astronomical medical care costs and a lingering recession, nursing administrators have no option but to make difficult choices in resource allocation.
  • (16) There may be lingering doubts over whether Meryl Streep , Viola Davis or outside bet Rooney Mara will claim the Academy Award for best actress later this month, and no-one is absolutely certain if Jean Dujardin , George Clooney or Gary Oldman will be picking up the equivalent male gong at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
  • (17) Her wonderful shop will remain open, and her presence will linger there as long as it does.
  • (18) Photograph: Courtesy of the family It’s been over a month since Fátima Avelica watched Ice agents, wearing uniforms stamped “POLICE”, handcuff and arrest her father, and the pain of that moment still lingers.
  • (19) Numbers showing weak wage growth as inflation edges up will provide traction for Labour's election campaign around lingering cost-of-living crisis.
  • (20) Writing in the Guardian , Mikhail Prokhorov, 46, said Russia was "undergoing a true awakening" – while warning of a lingering threat of violence as opposition leaders plan a new mass demonstration against the rule of Putin, the prime minister, on 4 February.

Loiter


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To be slow in moving; to delay; to linger; to be dilatory; to spend time idly; to saunter; to lag behind.
  • (v. i.) To wander as an idle vagrant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Neither in nor out of the house, visible but not seen, you could lurk here for an hour undisturbed, you could loiter for a day.
  • (2) Ward ignored a weak challenge from young Darnell Furlong as two more experienced Rangers’ players loitered in the vicinity with little intent, then Ward made his way into the box and struck a shot that deflected off Sandro into the net.
  • (3) Grafitti cakes his entrance hall, there is no heating, the lift has been broken for months and unemployed youths loiter with nothing to do.
  • (4) She wouldn't be found haunting the scene of the crime, as it were; loitering in the kitchen, in the maternity ward, at the school gate.
  • (5) As he puts it in his book Cities Under Siege: "The possibility of deploying swarms of armed and unarmed robots to loiter persistently across regions of the world deemed trouble spots is clearly a good fit with the Pentagon's latest thinking surrounding the long war."
  • (6) No wonder Roger Burman, Winterhill's barrel-chested headteacher, was beaming on Thursday morning as he welcomed a line of nervous teenagers into the school hall, some of whom confessed they had been awake since 5am ("and I usually get up at 1pm", giggled Amy Jones as she loitered outside).
  • (7) Deborah Kerr's screen name had loitered for a dozen years somewhere in the back of my brain.
  • (8) This game had ambled along cagily for almost half an hour, Uruguay tigerishly setting about stifling any hint of Colombian ascendancy, when Abel Aguilar nodded the ball forward to Rodríguez, loitering with his back to goal in a pocket of space just outside the Uruguay penalty area.
  • (9) 2.27am BST Ringside Kevin Mitchell in Las Vegas writes: Although there is a lot of loitering still, this terrific arena already has given Ashley Theophane his biggest audience, maybe half of the 16,000 capacity.
  • (10) Shani Pinney, a department official, said on Monday that such offenders were barred from working or volunteering in schools and from “loitering on school property”.
  • (11) It was barely disrupted when Darmian – who had at times looked a weak link after loitering in possession – dislocated a shoulder after challenging for a 50-50 ball with Khazri and was replaced by Donald Love, a Scotland Under-21 international.
  • (12) But stagnation remains the cloud loitering overhead, and, if the economy sulks its way through 2012 and living standards continue to fall, the polls may shift as voters' patience wears out.
  • (13) Analyses by five major diagnostic groups showed that patients with a primary diagnosis of drug or alcohol abuse had the greatest overall frequency of arrests and also the greatest frequency of arrests for burglary, offenses against public order such as peace disturbance or loitering, and probation and parole violations.
  • (14) As conditions are made safe for these blithe cretins they become more dangerous for Sherpas, whose job is to loiter in the dangerous parts of the mountain and secure them for ever greater numbers of incompetents to hurry through, en route to their photographs on the top of the world.
  • (15) "This guy is making me lose my concentration," he complains later as another man loiters nearby.
  • (16) In the suburb of Wilberforce, in an old building for the telecommunications company Airtel, a dozen students loiter on a wall waiting to relieve staff from the trauma at the Ebola hotline they are manning.
  • (17) Father Toño, who moved here from Madrid 14 years ago, chats over coffee while his guards – whose presence is the result of death threats from drug traffickers – loiter outside.
  • (18) While protest charges have typically been seen as tantamount to nuisance crimes, like trespassing or loitering, these were different.
  • (19) A berry meringue roulade to whip sad whites into shape and a thick, sharp lemon curd to save the souls of any feckless yolks left loitering about your fridge.
  • (20) Time to loiter in bookshops and catch a nice boy's eye over a copy of Patti Smith's autobiography?