- 1故意拖延、拖著不辦。新聞裡也會說延宕；口語則常說拖拖拉拉。不是「踢皮球」（把責任推給別人），而是自己慢吞吞、不願往前。
Foot-dragging is when someone is slow on purpose. They could move, but they do not want to, so they delay a decision, a job, or a change. You meet it a lot in news about governments, companies, and offices: talks stall because of foot-dragging. It is a criticising word, a little formal, more written than spoken. The picture underneath is a person walking while pulling their feet along the ground, so they cannot go fast. Though actually, nobody needs to move their feet; the delay is in action and attitude.
From the word’s history
From drag one's feet: walking while dragging the feet, from reluctance or to slow down on purpose.
來自 drag one's feet「拖著腳走」，形容不情願或故意放慢。
組成foot + dragging, from the older saying drag one’s feet: to walk while pulling your feet along the ground, either because you do not feel like going or to slow down on purpose.
同家族的字
- drag one's feetthe saying this noun was built from; same meaning of delaying on purpose
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
foot-draggingnoun/ˈfʊtˌdɹæɡɪŋ/
- 1
The deliberate delaying of, or reluctance to take, obligatory action.
- I am glad to be able to say that common honesty, or some shadowy simulacrum of it, revived presently and sent me back to the hotel, though not without terrible foot-draggings, you may be sure.
- The tactics of pace-setting, foot-dragging, least resistance or fence-sitting could be used either in the making of policy or, later, in its implementation, reflecting types of adaptation[…].
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。