intransitive verb
1
: to delay an activity with idle stops and pauses : dawdle
asked him not to loiter on the way home
2
a
: to remain in an area for no obvious reason
teenagers loitering in the parking lot
b
: to lag behind
a crowd of people, who loitered to hear the bloodcurdling threats the prisoner shouted—
Willa Cather
Etymology
Middle English
more detail from wiki:
From Middle English loitren, from Middle Dutch loteren ("to shake, wag, wobble"; > modern Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle, ramble”)), ultimately connected with a frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *lūtaną (“to bend, stoop, cower, shrink from, decline”), see lout. Cognate with Dutch leuteren (“to dawdle”), Alemannic German lottern (“to wobble”), German Lotterbube (“rascal”).
First Known Use
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1