woolgathering

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: wool=gath=er=ing

CIDE DICTIONARY

woolgathering, a. 

 Indulging in a vagrant or idle exercise of the imagination; roaming upon a fruitless quest; idly fanciful.  [1913 Webster]

woolgathering, n. 

 Indulgence in idle imagination; a foolish or useless pursuit or design.  [1913 Webster]
"His wits were a woolgathering, as they say."  [1913 Webster]

THESAURUS

woolgathering

Walter Mitty, absence of mind, absent, absentminded, absentmindedness, absorbed, absorption, abstracted, abstractedness, abstraction, bemused, bemusement, brown study, castle-building, daydream, daydreamer, daydreaming, daydreamy, depth of thought, dream, dreaming, dreamy, drowsing, ecstatic, elsewhere, engrossed, engrossment, fantasy, fantasying, faraway, fit of abstraction, half-awake, in a reverie, in the clouds, lost, lost in thought, meditative, mooning, moonraking, muse, museful, musefulness, musing, muted ecstasy, napping, nodding, oblivious, pensive, pipe dream, pipe-dreaming, preoccupation, preoccupied, rapt, reverie, somewhere else, stargazing, study, taken up, trance, transported, unconscious, wrapped in thought