foot-dragging

• footdragging

From drag one's feet.

foot-dragging (usually uncountable, plural foot-draggings)

1. The deliberate delaying of obligatory action.
   • 1918, Francis Lynde, Branded‎, page 114:

     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.

   • 2005, Clive Archer, Norway Outside the European Union: Norway and European Integration from 1994 to 2004, page 191:

     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.

   • 2008, Maryann Dickar, Corridor Cultures: Mapping Student Resistance at an Urban School, page 154:

     Once in the classroom, students also employed foot-dragging strategies to slow the transition from the hall state to the student state.

• slowball
• slow-walking (from slow-walk)