faff around, faff about
phrasal verb

- If you say that someone is faffing about or faffing around, you mean that they are doing things in a disorganized way and not achieving very much.

Collins Dictionary

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ORIGIN

Late 18th century, originally dialect in the sense ‘blow in puffs’ (imitative of the wind). The current sense may have been influenced by the dialect faffle meaning ‘stammer, stutter’ (later ‘flap in the wind’), which then came to mean ‘disorganized, having no effect’.

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STILL FAFFING AROUND

In 2002 Hugh Grant announced that his acting career was nearing an end.

“I only want to make one or two more films,” he said “then I might try and get less shallow. Have a relationship, have some children, write my book, make my own film, stop FAFFING AROUND…”

Cut to 18 years later (by 2020), Grant had had five children with two women, had not produced a book or a film of his own, but had appeared in 14 more films. Besides gaining immense fame and commercial success, Hugh Grant has been bestowed with many awards and honours worldwide and is known for giving witty and irreverent acceptance speeches.

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SYNONYMS for time-wasting

FAFFING AROUND, dilly-dallying, burning daylight, dallying, dawdling, fiddling about, frittering away time, goofing off, killing time, lingering around, lollygagging, losing time, passing the time, piddling, procrastinating, shilly-shallying, taking one’s own sweet time, tarrying, whiling away the time, twiddling thumbs, idling away the hours, filling in time, pottering about, lolling around, bumming around, horsing around, chilling out, idling away time, sitting on one’s hands, messing around, lounging about, doing nothing in particular, lolling around, dithering about, mooching about, kicking your heels, mucking about, diddling around, diddle-daddling, getting no place fast, sitting on one’s butt, warming a chair

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PRACTICE OWAD in an English conversation, discuss something like:

“Hey Jimmy! Stop FAFFING AROUND we have to finish this job by lunchtime.”

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THANKS to Jenny for suggesting today’s OWAD.

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Paul Smith