English · Idiom Candidate

burn daylight

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Waste time, especially during the day when work can be done.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

lãng phí thời gian, đặc biệt là vào ban ngày

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: waste daylight hours

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

We can't burn daylight, we have a deadline to meet.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “burn daylight” mean?

Waste time, especially during the day when work can be done. Literally: waste daylight hours

Is “burn daylight” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time