SIT BY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sit by mean? 

• SIT BY (verb)
  The verb SIT BY has 1 sense:

1. be inactive or indifferent while something is happening

  Familiarity information: SIT BY used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SIT BY (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be inactive or indifferent while something is happening

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

sit back; sit by

Context example:

Don't just sit by while your rights are violated!

Hypernyms (to "sit by" is one way to...):

look on; watch (observe with attention)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

 Context examples 

Then he sat himself down, and said, “I am very much tired; sit by me, I will rest my head in your lap, and sleep a while.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He won't stay there, he never does unless I sit by him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don't leave me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

"It be true," Ebbits assented gravely. "And always did he return to sit by the fire and hunger for yet other and unknown far places."

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they pretended to be quite surprised to see me out.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Of his own choice, he came in to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves, but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents, to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well aware.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I shall sit by you.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He was a thing of the wild, come in from the wild to sit by John Thornton’s fire, rather than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with the marks of generations of civilization.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)