What it means
To horse around is to mess about in a loud, physical, slightly feral way, usually with mates. Think shoving, play-fighting, chasing each other about, jumping on sofas, that sort of chaos. It's usually harmless fun, but it can tip into someone getting hurt, something getting smashed, or the whole place turning into a small disaster zone.
Usage examples
"Oi, stop horsing around. You nearly took the telly out. Dan went for a flying tackle, slipped on a sock, and ate carpet."
"The lads were horsing around in the pool until one of them belly-flopped onto the lilo and sank it."
"Stop horsing around near the shelves, you'll have the whole display over and we'll be paying for it."
"The kids were horsing around upstairs and now it sounds like someone's gone through the ceiling."
"We were just horsing around in the garden till Josh got shoved into the paddling pool with his phone in his pocket."
Where it comes from
It comes from horse, with the sense of behaving in a rough, energetic, unruly way, a bit like a powerful animal that's hard to keep still. Horse around shows up in American English from the 1800s, and the idea has long been tied to boisterous fooling about rather than anything genuinely hostile.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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