What it means
Messing around and wasting time on fiddly, pointless little tasks instead of just cracking on. You look busy, you feel busy, but nothing actually moves forward. Usually said with that classic British huff when someone’s holding everyone up over lost keys, the “wrong” jumper, or reorganising something nobody asked for. Proper everyday phrase, mildly scolding, never that deep.
Usage examples
"We’re meant to be out the door now, and you’re still looking for your keys and redoing your hair. Stop faffing about or we’ll miss it."
"Stop faffing about with the playlist and let's just get going."
"Quit faffing about with your outfit, we've missed one train already."
"He spent twenty minutes faffing about with the cables and still didn't plug the thing in."
"We would've been there ages ago if you hadn't been faffing about trying to pick the perfect snack for the road."
Where it comes from
It’s built from faff, a British word for fussing around, dithering, or making a simple thing weirdly long. Faff’s been around in UK English since the early 20th century, and faffing about just stretches that same idea into action: busy hands, fluttery energy, absolutely no proper progress.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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