English Reference

Idiom

hum and haw

Meaning

To procrastinate; to take a long time before doing something or taking a decision.

Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Examples

“Stop humming and hawing and just make a choice.”

“The committee spent hours humming and hawing over the budget instead of approving the project.”

“Despite the urgency of the situation, the board continued to hum and haw, effectively stalling any meaningful progress until the deadline had passed.”

Examples

simple

“Stop humming and hawing and just make a choice.”

contextual

“The committee spent hours humming and hawing over the budget instead of approving the project.”

complex

“Despite the urgency of the situation, the board continued to hum and haw, effectively stalling any meaningful progress until the deadline had passed.”

Key words

Related idioms

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English Reference